


You're a Bright Light, You're a Fistfight

by tsukara (AndThenTheresAnne)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, McBaguette - Freeform, Rarepair, enjoy your stay, welcome to rarepair hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-05-16 00:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 65,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndThenTheresAnne/pseuds/tsukara
Summary: Honor, glory, justice... they're all just trying to find a little bit of any of that in this new world and its new, clandestine Overwatch. New members and old have been thrown together, and Brigitte Lindholm and Jesse McCree find themselves some common ground.Or:One's a hat-doffing, Western-quoting huckleberry dingus, the other is a cinnamon roll inside and out that will hit you in the face with a mace.... together they fight crime! I mean Talon! And maybe fall in like along the way.





	1. The Heroes of Our Time

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, I don't have anything but my own brain to blame for this one, and some encouragement from a friend.
> 
> Oops I made a Eurovision joke for the chapter title.

Winston couldn't shake a feeling of mild disappointment at the response to the recall he'd issued. Lena's enthusiasm, in his mind, should have been the rule regarding the inclination of former Overwatch members, rather than the exception it proved to be. Yes, there was Tracer, and Pharah had responded (busy with Helix, she’d said, not officially a member she’d said, but… let her know if he needed her help with anything), and Dr. Ziegler, if reluctantly. Winston pointing out to her that they had the ability to get her to the same crisis points she was used to responding to, while hinting that none of the old bureaucratic red tape there had once been, had been enough to at least get her to show up. But he supposed many had moved on to their own things in the years since Overwatch fell, and you couldn’t expect them to drop everything and come back. Besides, you could not bring the dead back with wishful thinking. 

At least that’s what he had thought. 

Later, when more people arrived, or showed up in the news, or were heard from, Winston revised that assessment. But the first few months were a little lonelier than he had hoped.

They trickled in, one or two at a time, especially after the holidays, with Genji and his omnic mentor, Reinhardt with Brigitte trailing after, patching him up. Her father, Torbjörn, showed up a little after that, a Bastion unit who he swore up and down was not his friend trailing behind him. McCree just showed up one day while several of them were out on a test run of a mission in the American Southwest, complete with a new prosthetic arm. D.Va brought fresh enthusiasm along with her state-of-the-art mech. Lucio promised help between concerts and social events, with new songs telling tales of Overwatch’s heroism finding their way onto the airwaves. 

There were reports of others, sometimes even people who showed up long enough to help them out of some situation before disappearing into the night. An assassin by the callname of Shrike, an old Soldier who declined to give his name and declined to go back with them.

All in all, after a year or so, they had built up quite the little group. 

Watchpoint: Gibraltar was not a bad spot to build a base for the ones that chose to stick around between missions. Between the old base and the miles of old military tunnels that honeycombed the rock, there was always more room to expand, if you didn’t mind a little shuffling around.

Best of all, given the base’s old legal international status, no one government could claim jurisdiction over the rock itself these days. To prosecute anything going on there, the international community would have to agree as to who had jurisdiction before they did anything else. And with the state of the world as it was, it seemed most governments were content to turn a blind eye to any activities that may or may not be occuring at the old Watchpoint. 

It was definitely an odd little grouping of people, old hands and new kids alike. Not quite a team, but not as ragtag as they once were. One thing was for certain though: The new Overwatch was not anything like the old one, these days.

\--

McCree remembered Brigitte, vaguely, from back in the day. Nothing much more than a hazy memory of a girl who had followed Reinhardt around like a duckling, when she wasn't somewhere in her father's lab. It was only when he met her again that he realized those memories might have been a few years further back than he remembered. 

Reinhardt, well, no one could forget him. Though he had certainly picked up a few more dents and scars and bruises, he was still his boisterous old self. “McCree!” He greeted him jovially and loudly, clapping him on the shoulder. “I had heard you had wandered in out of the desert!”

McCree laughed and pounded a fist on his old comrade’s shoulder. Reinhardt didn’t stumble like Jesse had. “That’s me, just passing through for a bit. Last I heard you were doin’ a bit of wandering yourself, old man.”

“Ahhh, you heard correctly. Righting wrongs, fighting dragons, seeking a little justice in this world, isn’t that right, Brigitte?” He asked over his shoulder at the young woman who had just entered the hangar. 

“Telling stories already, Reinhardt?” She came up beside him, elbowing him in the arm, a mock-scolding tone to her voice. 

So it seemed the girl who was following him around could make--and maybe take--a joke or two at Reinhardt’s expense. That was good. Jesse didn’t want someone around who felt they had to get offended on Reinhardt’s behalf. That would just make working together tiresome. “He certainly is. Dragons?”

Reinhardt laughed, and the young woman rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story.” Eyeing McCree up and down, she stuck out her hand, covered in a work glove. “Brigitte Lindholm. You must be Jesse McCree.”

He took her hand and turned it, bowing over it and miming a kiss in the air above it. “You got it in one.”

Brigitte laughed at this formal turn of events, just like McCree had hoped she would. She followed Reinhardt around, after all. “Welcome back to Overwatch. I look forward to working with you.”

“Likewise.” He touched the brim of his hat as she turned to Reinhardt, apparently her purpose in coming out here.

“You need to come back and help me with that repair, now that you’ve seen everyone is fine out here.” Her tone still had that faintly-scolding, long-suffering character, but it was clear Reinhardt appreciated it, since he laughed.

“Alright, alright,” another hearty clap on McCree’s back, forcing an ‘oof’ from him. “I will see you later, my old friend.”

McCree touched the brim of his hat again and Reinhardt left with Brigitte at his side, detailing some process they’d left in the middle of when the team had returned. He watched them go, then turned to go find out where to drop his stuff for as long as he was planning to stick around here.

\--

"May I see?"

McCree looked up at Brigitte, sparing a quick glance to the side for the rest of the team. They had been called out on an anonymous tip (though there had been reports of someone stealing pulse ammunitions from an old Overwatch base only a few states to the south). According to the tip, there was a possible Talon bunker in what used to be an old missile silo out in the middle of Montana. There had been a bunker, yes, and it appeared that Talon had been using it at some point, but all the good stuff had been cleared out at some point before they showed up--everything but the defense systems. Between the four of them they’d made quick work of it, only one person getting too scratched up. A few dents and dings aside. 

"You gonna fix me up since the doc isn't here?" Dr. Ziegler was off tending to Genji, who had called for Angela a few moments ago. She had flown off with a fondly exasperated sigh, which made Jesse think there wasn’t much to worry about there. All McCree had was something mucked up with his mechanical arm--not an issue that would make him useless by any means, just slow him down. Jesse hated to be slowed down by anything.

Brigitte nodded, producing a multi-tool from a pocket somewhere. A short moment of consideration, and Jesse shrugged his free shoulder, shifting to let her look at the damaged mechanics of his prosthetic arm. "I know it's not one of your daddy's designs--always admired them--but this one does me fine, instead of some kinda claw.”

Half a second after it was out of his mouth and Jesse regretted it already, realizing it could be taken as an insult of some kind. Thankfully, she gave a snort of laughter, her hands just as steady as ever. "He does like that thing, doesn't he? At home, Mamma banned it from everywhere but his workshop ages ago."

As she talked her hands worked steadily, opening up the (now dented) panel that protected the more delicate mechanics of his arm, sorting through everything to find the fault. "There we are," she murmured, leaning closer over her work. Jesse watched her, curious and cautious.

"Ah!" The spark of reflex, a jolt, interrupting his train of thought, and it was a full second before he realized he had accidentally just clocked Brigitte in the chin with his arm, quite hard. "Shit! Sorry!"

Brigette blinked up at him, as if processing what had happened, and then laughed, bright as a bell. "I should've been expecting that, sorry McCree!"

"You shoulda--" He bit off his surprised sentence, shaking his head. "C'mon, let's get you up." He extended his right arm to her, and she took it, using it as the leverage she needed to get back to her feet. 

She brushed herself off, then pushed one of those locks of hair back. "Thanks. Like I said, I should've known there'd be a surge of some kind when I reconnected that." With deft fingers she shut the panel back up, making sure everything was in place. "I can't do anything about the cosmetic damage here, but it should be working alright for now."

Jesse tested his arm, flexing the fingers this way, that, then curling them into a thumbs-up for her. He was rewarded with one of her brilliant grins. "Works great, Copperhead. Thanks a million."

"It's no trouble at all."

Half-instinctively, Jesse reached out, touching fingers to her jawline where he could just about see the first blossoms of a bruise forming. "Sorry about that, though. Don't like hitting a lady, even on accident."

"Oh." Brigitte's fingers rose to where his had brushed, a little self-consciously. "No, it's ok. Like I said." Suddenly she grinned, that hint of mischief so clear in her smile he could just about hear it. "And don't worry. I won't tell Pappa where I got it. Or Reinhardt."

The thoughts that suddenly ran through his head ( _oh god what would Reinhardt do to him if he ever even got wind of the idea that Jesse had hit a girl, that hammer was really fuckin big, and then Torbjorn with his claws and his metal and--_ ) must have reflected on his face, because she laughed, picking up her flail and settling it firmly on her shoulder. "Besides, I can take care of myself."

Jesse, following after her to their transport and the rest of the party, did not doubt her for one damn second.


	2. The Pieces of What I'll Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which nicknames are elucidated on, discussions happen over meals, and a lot of beer is drunk by several parties.

The clunk of Genji’s slightly-more-full beer bottle on the table of the bar followed half a second behind McCree’s, leaving fresh wet rings on the old, scarred wood. They had been surprised to find that this place had survived, after the upheavals of Overwatch and Blackwatch and the whole damned house of cards. But he supposed that people always needed somewhere to drink, and Gibraltar was not exactly a rock with an overabundance of space.

“It’s strange, all these kids on the team now. They’re just so damn young.” Jesse punctuated the end of his sentence by sticking his unlit cigar back in his mouth and chomping on it. 

Genji simply looked amused, comfortable in the atmosphere of this old bar where their known-faces and always-paid bar tabs made Overwatch welcome, even these days when things were on the downlow. They were paying to drink and the owners welcomed anyone to come and pay to get drunk, as long as the trouble was kept outside. “You forget, McCree, we were barely older than boys when we started.”

McCree took another swig from his rapidly emptying bottle, the cigar disappearing somewhere Genji didn’t bother to follow. “That musta been about a century ago, or something.”

“What,” Genji laughed at his friend. “Feeling old?” The look McCree shot back at him could’ve killed a man at ten paces, if looks could do such a thing. Genji was completely unimpressed with it. "You are starting to sound like Reinhardt." Jesse merely grumbled at this, not coming up with any good rejoinders that didn’t make him sound even more like the old man, and emptied his bottle in one go. “Besides,” Genji continued as McCree swiped up his bottle too, which Genji neither prevented nor protested. “It’s nice to have young blood around the place. Liven it up a bit.”

Jesse gave a huff of laughter, remembering the small prank war last week that had started with banana peels and ended with pie turrets. “Yeah I’ll give you that.” A contemplative pause. “Then there’s little Fareeha running around with her rockets, and Torb’s kid running around with a big hammer now too. S’weird, like I’ve fallen into some kinda time warp.”

“Brigitte is quite the sparring partner, I have found.” Coming from Genji, this was high praise. “Very formidable.” Another pause, and Genji grinned. “You should join us sometime.”

That grin definitely had a side of evil mischief to it. “And get smacked around by the both of ya with foam weapons til the sun goes down? No thank you. I’ll stick to what I know.”

Genji shrugged, picking up the empty bottles and heading for the bar, presumably for the next round.

\--

Jesse was on his way to the mess to see if someone had scrounged up something resembling supper yet, when he noticed someone in the gym and stopped by to one, see who it was and, two, depending on the first, see if it was someone any better at cooking than he was. He wasn’t bad, exactly, it was just he knew there were definitely people better than him--plus a few that didn’t appreciate the number of garlic cloves or chilies McCree thought ought to go into just about everything.

Just one person there, Torbjorn’s kid, Brigitte, clad in loose, comfortable clothing and pulling herself up on a chin-up bar. The front of her black tank top read ‘sleeves are bullshit’, and Jesse did have to laugh at that. Brigitte pulled herself up once more, grinned at him over the bar, and dropped gracefully to the ground. “Hej hej.” She pulled first one headphone, then the other out.

“Hey, I was about to go rustle up some grub, you wanna join me?”

Brigitte blinked a little at his choice of words and choice of company--he could have just said hello and walked on--but shrugged after a moment. “I suppose, if you’d like.”

“Nothing fancy, just the mess hall. There must be somethin.”

Brigitte pocketed her handheld and the headphones attached to it and joined him at the door. Instinctively, Jesse looked down at her feet, bare against the floor, then back up at her with an inquisitive eye. “Ah.” A pair of boots stood untied next to the door and she picked them up, slinging them over her shoulder by the laces. “Nothing fancy, right?”

Jesse shrugged and led the way to his original destination, Brigitte following half a step behind. A few feet down the corridors and curiosity overcame her. “Were you ever stationed here, back in the day?”

He looked back at her, a little surprised. “Me? Came here a couple of times, sure, but stationed? Nah, this was not, uh. Not my stomping grounds.”

“Not Blackwatch’s, you mean?” Her tone was neutral. Jesse wasn’t sure what to read into it. Of course she knew about Blackwatch, but then, the whole world did. He wondered if it was something she had learned about when the rest of the world had, or if the clever kid he remembered running around had ever figured out anything under the table was going on.

“Right.”

“It’s too bad, it’s quite nice out here.”

That Jesse could not disagree with, and offered a hum of agreement. It was a little more humid than any place he’d once called home, but the warm was nice. Better than Stockholm in the winter--but then what wasn’t?

Frozen or canned seem to be their choices in the kitchen today, but at least they didn’t have to wait for the same microwave. Out in the dining area, armed with their food and all, finding a place to sit was no trouble. The only other person was Lucio, who waved at the two of them before following what looked like Hana out the door, saying something about the next round of a video game. Out of expediency and because there was no one else to get the good table, they sat at one of the two tops against the windowed wall. The sun was just beginning to set, casting copper light against the haze of Spain not too far in the distance and glinting off the water.

They ate in silence for a while, focused on food, then picked up the conversation. “What made you decide to come back, McCree? When Winston sent out the recall, I mean.” 

McCree thought about it for a moment, swallowed his mouthful of beans, rice, and hot sauce, then shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. Guess I was just bored and looking for something to do.”

It looked like she was about to poke further, so he jumped in with a question of his own, see how she liked it when _he_ poked. “Why’d you decide to follow Reinhardt?” She blinked at him, a bit wide-eyed. “Believe me, I-I'd get wanting to wear the armour and all, but following the old man around must be nothing but trouble.”

She set her spoon down and frowned at him a little. “I don’t see it that way. To me, it’s an honor.”

“Honor, huh?” From his tone it was very clear he didn’t get it. 

Brigitte decided that wasn’t a fight worth having, so she changed the subject, picking her spoon back up and gesturing at him with it. "What I don’t get is your nicknames sometimes. I mean, coppertop?" She brushed a burnished strand of hair out of her face as she spoke. "It's not the most creative thing I've ever been called."

Jesse smirked, giving a little shake of the head. "Copperhead, darlin'. Like the snake."

Brigitte eyed him with mixed emotions. "A snake? I'm not sure whether that's better, honestly."

He shrugged, as if he didn't mind what she thought of it one way or another. "You're quick, and you're pretty deadly with that flail doohickey of yours. Pretty as a pit viper, people'd do well not to cross you. Your hair just happens to be a nice bonus there."

"Hmm." She wasn't entirely convinced, but nearer to it, and willing to let it go, for now, anyway.

“So you’ve been wandering around Europe, fighting dragons or what have you, then Winston sends out his message, and y’all decide to come back?” He asked, not sounding judgemental about it. 

Brigitte shrugged, and shook her head. “No, not really. I mean. The wandering part, yes, but when we got the recall message,” she sighed, looking out at the water. “I didn’t want him to come,” she admitted softly, not knowing how he would take it.

“Why?” He asked with plain curiosity.

“You wouldn’t--” She stopped herself, looking at him again. “Well. Maybe you would understand, I suppose.”

McCree leaned back in his chair almost, but not quite, to the point of tipping it back, draping an arm along the back of it. “Why doncha try me.”

“It was a lot of reasons. Overwatch pushed him out in the first place, why should he come running at their beck and call? Let someone else save the world for a change, we already had so much on our plates.”

He nodded along, understanding all that entirely. The fallout with Blackwatch had come before Reinhardt had been forcibly retired, but not much before. “I hear you there,” he murmured. 

“But you know how Reinhardt is,” She shrugged helplessly.

McCree laughed because, yes, he absolutely did. “So he charged on back here and you followed after?”

Another shrug. “Not immediately. I convinced him to stop by home so we could tell Pappa in person, and to spend the holidays there, which wasn’t hard. And by then I had drawn up my armor prototypes, so.” She turned her focus back to him. “You didn’t come back right after the message went out either, right?”

Now he did lean back a little further, looking at the ceiling. “S’right. Wasn’t sure I wanted any part in this whole circus again, for a lot of the same reasons. Then Lena and the others crash-landed right on my little patch of dirt I was calling home for the moment, so I said, hey, why not?” He grinned at her, chair falling back to the floor with a thump. He pulled out a cigar and stuck it between his teeth, making no motion to light it. “Besides, thought I might find a little fun around here. Had been getting pretty dull back stateside.”

Brigitte got the feeling that wasn’t all there was to it, but wasn’t going to pry. “Makes sense, I guess.”

They settled back into a comfortable silence for the rest of the meal, and went their separate ways soon after.

\--

“I’m a little surprised to see you here, Venerable Sir,” Brigitte addressed the Omnic monk (which she had even looked up the proper address for) accompanied by his softly chiming orbs, even here in the dark bar. She hadn’t interacted much with Zenyatta thus far, though they had been sharing the same rock for a while. Genji was over laughing at something her father was saying on the other side of the bar, so she had snatched the chance to speak with this curious individual.

If it was possible to read an expression through body language, one must have to include Zenyatta’s constant companion orbs too, she supposed. He seemed cordial enough. “Why is that, Miss Lindholm?”

Brigitte waved a hand in the face of this courtesy. “Oh, no, please, just Brigitte.”

“Then you may call me Zenyatta.” A few harmonious chimes came from the spheres to accompany this.

She inclined her head with an acknowledging nod, then answered the question. “I mean, you don’t eat or drink, do you? I would think this sort of social gathering would be a little, I don’t know…” She trailed off, uncertain.

“On the contrary, I find that without the biological appurtenances I can more fully inhabit the moment and be more sociable.”

“I… suppose that’s a good point.” Brigitte took a long drink of her own ‘appurtenance’ in the form of a hard cider.

“Additionally, my companions are always assured of having a designated driver, if the need should arise.” It was delivered in his usual dry, even tone, but Brigitte sensed a joke, so she laughed. Judging by the little wave that went around his orbs, he appreciated that she had understood it to be such.

It had begun as nothing more than an invitation to go relax and drink, only a few people at first, then pulling a few more in its wake until it could properly be described as a true gathering. Not quite a party, but just a chance for those living at or visiting the again-functioning base of Gibraltar to let off a little steam, and celebrate the fact that, almost a year after the recall message, they hadn’t been shut down by an overzealous government or crushed into oblivion by Talon, among other potential disasters. 

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves at this little get-together, even the bar staff, who had given the back room over to them for the evening. Wouldn’t want the regular patrons being disturbed by sights like giant apes, floating omnics, cyborg ninjas, dwarfs, and cowboys, after all. 

A soft chime ran around Zenyatta’s accompanying spheres. “Judging by the frequency of looks in our direction, I believe my protege wishes to speak with me.”

Indeed, Genji was looking this direction, along with the occasional glance from her father. Brigitte decided to leave them to whatever discussion they were having that required an engineer, a monk, and a… Whatever Genji was or considered himself now. “I think I’m going to get a little more cider.”

The Omnic monk drifted away from her with a nod of the head, and she drifted in the other direction. Once her glass was full again, she surveyed the room full of people--friends, family, and those somewhere in between--and made for the quietest corner. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a social sort of person, far from it, but after so long of it just being her and Reinhardt, it could be a little much....

“Spare a seat?” She asked McCree, ensconced at a quiet table on the side of things. Not anti-social, by any means, just out-of-the-way. 

He gestured her onto the bench next to him. “Please, I’d be honored.”

Brigitte smiled gratefully and sat. It felt so good to sit that for a moment she just leaned her head back against the wall and savored the sensation. Then, cognizant she was still in company, she sat back up, a faint blush on her cheeks. Perhaps he would put it down to the alcohol. “Quite a party, huh?”

McCree tilted his head in an ambivalent gesture. “It’s not half bad, at that.” 

They watched the others around them in companionable silence for a long while. Between the more boisterous members of the small group and the reactions they elicited from others, there was more than enough noise to fill the space.

“Brigitte!” Her godfather’s voice rang out from across the room as he approached, and she sat up. When she made to stand though, Reinhardt waved her back down into her seat. “No no, do not get up for this old man.”

Torbjorn was following behind him. “We are going back to base before this one can get into too much trouble,” her father told her, only half joking.

“Speak for yourself, my diminutive friend!” Reinhardt had clearly had a few to drink, since alcohol always tended to increase his volume first. Torbjorn wasn’t any louder, but the flush across his face indicated that, yes, he had had a few as well.

Brigitte rolled her eyes fondly at the pair. “You’re sure you don’t need me to come too? Make sure you get back okay?”

Her father patted her heavily on the back. “No, you go ahead and stay, you are young and so is the night.”

She saluted them with her pint of cider, watching the pair of them leave. Once they were out the door, she turned back to McCree, shaking her head, then drained her drink. McCree raised his eyebrows, indicating her empty glass with a nod. “Y’want another?”

Brigitte thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Why not?” Besides, if he went up there she wouldn’t get another of those looks from Angela. The kind of look that said she wasn’t sure if Brigitte was old enough to be out this late at night, let alone drinking. “Though I think I’ll switch to something other than cider. Your call,” she told him, giving him free rein as he stood.

He acknowledged this with a touch of two fingers to the brim of his hat--worn even inside--and took off towards the bar. When he returned, it was with two pints of beer and a blonde woman trailing him. So it seemed she was not going to escape Angela after all. “Enjoying yourself?” She asked the older woman.

Angela smiled, eyes following the pint as McCree slid it over to Brigitte. “Yes, and it appears you are as well.”

Brigitte answered this with a lift of the glass in Angela’s direction before taking a long drink from it. It was something much darker than the cider she had been drinking, but that was alright. It was good beer, and definitely better than some things she had subjected her liver to out with Reinhardt in some backwater parts of the continent. And at least it wasn’t that swill Americans called “light beer”, so there was that. 

No further comment was forthcoming from Angela at the moment on what Brigitte was drinking though, other than a little shake of the head. “I'm also going to head back. You will be alright here?”

“I’ll be fine, Angela.” Brigitte waved a hand at her table companion. “I’ve got company, after all.”

McCree grinned at Angela. “Of course, you’re more than welcome to join us, stay a little longer.”

The doctor smiled back. “No, I really think I should be going. Good night, both of you.” With that, Angela took herself out the door, following a few of the others. 

Brigitte watched her go, then sighed, slumping down in the seat a little bit. McCree eyed her with faint concern. “You alright there?” 

She nodded, then laughed, taking another long drink from her pint. "It’s fine. It’s just.” She made a face, considering what to tell him, then leaned forward a bit. “You know, honestly sometimes I'm glad we're not stationed closer to Gothenburg than we are," Brigitte said in a low tone of confession.

Jesse looked at her curiously. "Why's that?” He thought for a moment. “That’s where your family lives, right? I mean, I've met your mama, she seems like a lovely lady. Angela really took to her, back in the day.” He sipped his glass of beer. “Bakes up a storm, too,” he added.

Brigitte answered this with a fond smile. "Of course she is, she's the best. But it's just..." A small sigh escaped her. "Do you have siblings?" 

As soon as she'd asked it, she knew she'd hit on a sensitive subject, with the way his face closed off. "I used to. Coupla younger sisters, way back. Dunno what's become of 'em."

It was a convenient lie, that much she knew. Having been part of an organization like Overwatch, with its resources, and part of the intelligence-gathering parts of the organization back then, she had no doubt McCree could have sought out, and found, information about what happened to his family. Either he had never looked, choosing to live without that knowledge, or he had and not liked the answer he found. Whichever it was, Brigitte left it alone. 

"I'm the youngest, back home, half my siblings have kids now. Still the baby of the family, it feels like, sometimes.” She gestured widely with a hand, encompassing the whole situation around them all. “Here, too. I think sometimes people still see me as that little girl running after my Pappa whenever I could.”

Jesse sat back a little, considering her as she sipped her pint of beer. More than sipped, really. She drank like either of her mentors, Angela not among them. “Kinda hard to reconcile that little girl with the way you can tear up a battlefield,” he pointed out.

A small laugh, more beer. “But then the armor comes off, and…” She left it there with an eloquent shrug of those toned shoulders and Jesse said the first thing that popped into his head.

“They definitely don’t see what I’m seeing then.” 

He easily read the look she gave him as wondering what in the hell he meant by that, but she didn’t ask out loud, and Jesse was glad for it, since he didn’t know exactly what he meant by it either. 

She came back around to the original topic of the conversation. “But, you know, Angela is more like one of my older sisters, too. I have a couple that age, and since her folks were gone by the time she had started school, Mamma and Papa kind of took her in. I grew up with her around the house as much as my other siblings." Her tone turned conspiratorial, her look full of wry humor. "In fact, I think for a little while there Mamma was hoping she and Anders would hit it off, but no."

Jesse nodded slowly, beginning to see a little bit of the problem, especially surrounded by those who had been part of the old Overwatch, once before. “So she looks at you like you’re still a kid, and then your dad’s around…” He trailed off at her nod. 

Brigitte lifted her pint to him. “All in all, it’s nice to have at least a few people around who treat me like an adult, and not some sort of overgrown kid playing dress-up.” With that, she drained the drink. Jesse mock-toasted her with his, and drained it as well. 

That drink was the one that hit him, or maybe the last one just a bit delayed. “Adult or no, I think that was the last one for me. I think I’m gonna stumble my way back to base.”

She stood when he did, just about the same amount of unsteady on feet as he was, he noted. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Genji and Winston, the oldest of those still hanging around, went with them too, which was probably a good thing. After all, the Rock of Gibraltar was full of holes in the dark, but everyone made it back safely without trouble.


	3. From the Wreck of My Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new face shows up after the recall, and it's not quite who anyone expected--also McCree gets boffed around with foam weapons and Overwatch as a game earns its T rating for depictions of tobacco use.

McCree stared up at the clouds scudding across the blue Mediterranean sky, and tried to convince himself to get back up again. Trouble was, getting up meant, most likely, getting smacked back down again. At least he was lucky that Reinhardt had decided to tap out to the sidelines after his hour's workout with them.

Brigitte's face appeared above him in that circle of sky and clouds. “You okay?”

He tried to laugh, and winced. If his rib wasn't bruised, at the very least, he'd eat his (safer than he was, over on the sidelines) hat. “Why the hell did I let Genji talk me into this?”

It was a rhetorical question and her only answer was a grin, and a hand offered down to help pick himself back up. Once standing, McCree brushed the dust from his velcroed-on padding armor. Genji, off to the side, was holding his own padded weapon casually across his shoulder, Brigitte's leaning on the low barrier that marked off this sparring circle. “Another round, McCree?” Genji's voice was full of humor.

McCree answered him by pulling a hand from his knees to show his supposed-friend a middle finger. “Hell no,” he added, to emphasize the point.

Genji sighed in mock-disappointment. “Alright, I suppose we are done for the day then, yes?” He looked to Reinhardt for his verdict.

“Ach, well, I suppose.” Reinhardt stood. “I guess you young people cannot go as long as us classic models.”

McCree shook his head as he began to pull the padding off. “Any time you wanna go up against me at the firing range, old man…”

While Reinhardt laughed, Brigitte looked interested. “Really?”

McCree looked over at her, a little surprised. “You interested?”

“It seems like it would be useful practice,” she shrugged.

Genji was nodding thoughtfully. Brigitte gave another shrug at Reinhardt’s curious look. “Not everyone has a hammer so big they don't have to aim it,” she teased her mentor.

Reinhardt and Genji both laughed at this characterization of Reinhardt's beloved weapon. McCree grinned and spread his hands wide. “Sure thing, Copperhead. How's tomorrow sound?”

Brigitte looked at Genji, questioning. “What do you say, willing to give up your hour with me tomorrow?”

Genji's grin back at her was disconcerting in its edge. “If you would like.”

McCree jammed his hat onto his head, his grin an echo of Genji's. “See ya then.”

-

Brigitte aimed the pistol again, this time accounting for the kickback on the second shot, all six shots thudding into the target. It was a wide spread, but all on the target. 

She turned to McCree with a grin. “I think I've got the hang of it.”

He grinned back. “Sure do.” She had picked it up quite fast, actually, working with one of the small pulse pistols of the sort that Mercy carried in the field. He paused, considering. “You wanna try something a little more… interesting?”

Brigitte eyed him curiously, setting down the pulse blaster. “What are you suggesting?”

With a flourish he pulled his Peacekeeper pistol from its holster, spun it around his finger a few times, then offered the weapon to her grip-first. Tentatively, she reached out, taking it in her hand. She had a good grip on it, he noted, not too gingerly but not too firmly, keeping the barrel aimed down. Brigitte looked up at him. “You sure?” 

As an answer, he hit the button to reset the target, then gestured to it with a flourish. “Go ahead.”

The gun was quite a bit heavier than the blaster she had been using beforehand as she raised it carefully, aiming at the target like he'd shown her. Aim, sight, squeeze the trigger…

The kickback was shocking, even for the size, stunning Brigitte for a brief moment. She looked over her shoulder at Jesse, eyes wide. “That's… different.”

He just grinned back at her. “Y'got five more shots.”

She shook her head at him, but turned back and took aim again, sighted down the barrel, and shot the last five shots. They went a little slower than the shots with the lighter blaster, but she managed to hit the target with all of the shots, even if only barely. Once done, she lowered the gun, eyeing the wide spread for a moment, then turning back to return his weapon. When he took it, reloading it quickly and easily with a flourish, then holstered, she watched with a newfound respect. “Thank you. For letting me try that.” Her gratitude was genuine. “But I think I'll stick to my flail, for now.”

He grinned back at her. “Fair enough.”

\--

“Where’d they find her?”

Winston looked up from the monitor displaying the image of their newest arrival, sitting in the small room just beyond. This Watchpoint had never really been set up with prisoners or detainees in mind, that not being the sort of thing they generally did, especially here. But a small, secured room had been found when their unexpected guest had showed up out of the blue. A camera placed in the room, with its feed running to the monitor, and a sound-proof door that wasn’t locked, though they had asked very nicely that she not go anywhere, just yet. “She just walked onto the base, as nonchalant as you please,” he informed McCree, who strode into the outer room.

On the monitor was an image of one Moira O'Deorain, examining the overly-long nails on one slim, elegant hand. The gentle glow of her biotic pack was still secured on her back. 

“Well I’ll be damned.” McCree stared some more at the screen, trying to make himself believe that the woman he’d last seen in person just after Blackwatch was disbanded and disavowed was really here. “I’d heard something about her being some kinda minister or something. Didn’t seem the religious type to me though.”

The click of heels from down the hall announced Angela Ziegler’s presence, breezing into the outer room, Genji hot on her heels. “Minister of Genetics, in Oasis, I believe,” her clipped tones brisk as she too examined the monitor. “Now what on earth is she doing here?”

Winston shifted uncomfortably. “She didn’t seem very willing to talk to me, after a, uh. Short conversation about scientific ethics, that is.” Angela, who apparently empathized with him on this, placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Perhaps I should speak with her,” Genji volunteered. 

McCree touched the brim of his hat in a mock-salute to Genji. “Better you than me. I don’t think she’d like seeing my face, given how we parted ways.” 

The sound Genji made could have been a laugh, or a sigh, or just simple acknowledgment, sometime it was hard to tell, with him. But he wasn’t about to argue, McCree knew. He had been there too, after all. 

Moira looked up at the sound of the door opening, a slow smile coming across her face. “Well, now. If it isn’t Genji Shimada, in the flesh. At least partially. So they’ve sent you in here as their scout, have they?” The sound came through very clearly over the camera as Genji shut the door behind him.

“Hello, Moira. It has been a very long time.”

McCree realized he was grinding his teeth at the concerned (with an edge of annoyance) look that Angela threw at him. He mustered up a ghost of a sheepish grin, tipping his hat to her in apology. “Sorry, I think I’ll just wait outside. Y’all let me know if you need me.”

Without waiting for a response from the other two, McCree left the room, striding down the corridor, feet automatically taking him towards the nearest exit from this building. He was so on autopilot, he didn’t have time to stop before colliding with six-foot-four of red hair and work coveralls, Brigitte tumbling into him. “Whoa there!” Out of sheer instinct, he managed to catch her before she fell, one hand on her wrist, the other on her hip.

“Jesse!” She blinked at him. “Uh, hi!”

“Hey.” He laughed apologetically. “Sorry about that, didn’t see where I was going.” Belatedly, he let go of her, realizing she was balanced again. 

“What’s got you in such a hurry?” Her expression clouded. “Something’s going on, is it an emergency?”

“What makes you think there’s something going on?” 

“Genji had to run off, sent me a message to let me know that he wasn’t going to make our sparring session this afternoon.” And if McCree had been hurrying somewhere, it wasn’t just a Genji thing, yes, he could see how she’d put those pieces together. 

“Uh,” he began.

“And please don’t lie to me, Jesse,” she said before the lie could leave his lips. “If you can’t say, then you can’t say, but I don’t like it when people lie to me.”

That stopped him for a long second as he tried to decide what he could or couldn’t tell her. It wasn’t like the news wouldn’t be all over the base soon enough, but then there was his own history to consider. “Somebody from old Overwatch just showed up here at base,” he confessed. Seeing her eyes begin to light up, he corrected himself. “From Blackwatch, I should say.”

Confusion replaced the incipient delight. “Blackwatch… but who--” Her eyes went wide. “Doctor O'Deorain is here?” Jesse nodded, watching the odd play of emotions on her face, settling on concerned. “Well. That certainly is something.”

“Genji’s talking to her now, but I didn’t really feel like being in that room. ‘Specially not after...” He trailed off. “After everything.”

Brigitte nodded understanding of that much at least. “So you were headed for the rock?”

Jesse rubbed the back of his neck, still a little embarrassed about nearly running her over. “Thought I’d get a little air.”

“A good plan.” She paused. “Do you… want some company?”

The loner in McCree had the instinct to refuse outright, but Brigitte had proved good company before and, hell, he could use all the friends he could get right about now. He wondered what Genji and Moira were saying to each other. “That’d be right nice of you.”

With a nod, she turned her feet down the corridor he’d been headed towards, McCree at her side. 

The sun was beginning to make its way toward the horizon, throwing a path of light across the glimmering Atlantic ahead of them as they emerged on the east side of the rock. Some of the old military tunnels connected the base to the sheer side of the rock in different areas. It was an out of the way sort of place, not where someone was likely to come looking for them. Brigitte had spent a little time in these tunnels herself since coming here after Winston’s recall, and knew some good spots.

The two of them settled comfortably on the edge of the rock lip, a short drop to a lower ledge directly beneath their feet, another sheer one to the ocean below that. Jesse checked to make sure he was sitting downwind from her, then pulled out a cigar and a lighter from one of his pocket. “Do you mind?”

She looked at the smoking implements, then shook her head. He lit the cigar expertly, putting the lighter away again.

Silence reigned for a few minutes, then he sighed, exhaling. “Of all the people to show up from Blackwatch, it had to be her…”

She studied him in profile. “Genji was in Blackwatch too, wasn’t he?”

Jesse shrugged, conceding that much. “He was a very different man back then than the one I’ve gotten to know these days.” He glanced at her, curious. “Just what do you remember about Blackwatch anyway?” He was curious. She was a fair bit younger than him, and had never officially been part of Overwatch, back in the day. 

She looked away at the ocean, squinting against the light and thinking. “I knew… I knew Commander Reyes was doing something, running some sort of missions, but not what sort of things they were. I knew Doctor O'Deorain,” Her faced colored a bit as she paused, somewhat embarrassed by her younger self’s perceptions. “I knew she was the doctor I didn’t like. Everyone else who worked with Angela was nice--or at least polite--to me, she… was cold. She looked at me the same way she looked at the lab rats or rabbits.” Brigitte grimaced. “I seem to remember her making some comment about my genes, because Pappa is so short. Genji was nothing but ‘that creepy ninja guy’ Angela was always working with.” She trailed off, thinking to herself.

Jesse noticed an interesting omission from that list. “And me?”

She looked over at him. “Back then?” A pause, and then she smiled, “I liked your hat.”

He laughed, touching the brim of it when a finger to tip it up at her. “Glad to hear it.”

Her smile turned pensive as she thought some more. “Reinhardt seemed to like you, even back then. Something about justice, I think. But I think he was disappointed that you were in Blackwatch. He never told me about Blackwatch, but once everything came out…” She shrugged, leaving it at that. 

“Ha.” He blew a stream of thick smoke out on his laugh. “He would.” Another pause and pull on the cigar. “I joined up because of that in the first place, actually. Thought I could find some kinda justice by dispensing some of it. Make up for the things I did back in the day.” He looked at her. “Didn’t quite turn out that way though.”

She studied him for a moment, then looked back to the nearly-set sun. “Things don’t always work out like they do in the stories.”

It certainly sounded like she knew a thing or two about that, from her voice. 

They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the last dregs of sunset, the lights of ships passing by, the glimmer of lights from the city and the rest of Spain, enjoying the night breeze. There was a metallic click and the flicker of a flame as Jesse lit another cigar and Brigitte thought, yes, that fit the sort of night it was out here. 

They were surrounded by many points of light, from the stars to the cities, but Brigitte’s eye kept getting pulled to the smaller glow of the cigar whenever he took a drag on it, instead of the stars or the world around them. She couldn’t fathom why he liked those things so much, even to the point of keeping an unlit one around to chew on.

“May I try?” She asked, on pure impulse. 

Jesse looked at her, eyebrows raised, then realized what she was talking about. “What, my cigar? Trust me, you don’t want any of this old soggy stick.” He took another pull off it, exhaling a stream of smoke to the cooling night air. “Besides, smokin’s a terrible habit, bad for your health, or so the good doc keeps telling me.”

Brigitte rolled her eyes. “It’s a habit I am very unlikely to pick up. Plus,” she added, “if it’s as nasty as you say it is there won’t be any danger of my liking it enough to pick up.”

A faint laugh from the man, before he took another drag, the ember lighting up his face, and his eyes, watching her. He exhaled a smoky laugh. “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug, rolling the ash off the butt and handing it to her.

Even though she was the one who had asked, Brigitte looked dubiously at the thing before going to put it into her mouth. Jesse’s hand stopped her wrist, and she looked at him. “Don’t inhale, trust me on this one.”

“Then what am I supposed to do with it?”

He paused, searching for words in the dark. “You just kinda… suck some of the smoke into your mouth, let it sit for a second, then blow it out.” 

Her quizzical look intensified, but, slowly, she did as he had specified. It tasted of tobacco, sure, but deeper and richer, nothing at all like the one cigarette she had gotten Anders to let her try when she was sixteen and--being sixteen--still very young and dumb. It had been smart of him, on further reflection, since it had certainly put her off even the idea of smoking forever after. She let the cloud of thick smoke out into the night air with a breath, then turned the cigar to hand it back to the man sitting beside her. “So,” he asked, returning the cigar to his own mouth. “What’d you think?”

Brigitte considered, the taste still in her mouth like an old whiskey. “I still don’t think it’s a habit I’m going to be picking up… but it wasn’t so bad.” 

He laughed a little, and the night resumed its comfortable silence.


	4. A War Ain't a War Until Both Sides Bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we experience canon-typical violence! Or, rather, our heroes do. You've been warned!

The question of how to deal with one Minister Doctor Moira O'Deorain was very much the topic of the hour, at the base of operations formerly known as Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

“Technically,” Winston looked uneasy. “We have no right to keep her here against her will. She hasn’t done anything to harm us--”

“Yet,” McCree muttered, just barely under his breath. The look Winston shot him was quelling, if understanding.

“And she’s a minister of a foreign government,” Winston finished helplessly. “Besides, this information she brought us,” He trailed off, tapping the papers spread over the table. “It isn’t much, but any lead on Talon’s operations is a good one.”

Angela slid one of the papers over to her and looked it over. “Where did she say she got this information from?”

It was Genji who answered, having spent the most time in that room with the person in question, the day prior. “From the government in Oasis, she said.” He paused, then added, “Without their approval, supposedly.”

“Which means,” Winston picked the thread of the conversation back up. “Not only hasn’t she done anything to us yet, she’s taking a risk by bringing us information we wouldn’t have otherwise.”

“What are we going to do with this information though?” Reinhardt, always the man of action, was the one who threw that question into the room. 

There was a general murmur as everyone put their minds to this question. Lena tapped a finger on one of the sheets of paper, something that jumped out at her. “Winston, isn’t Hana in Seoul at the moment?”

“Yes. She wanted to go home for a bit. Something about a gaming tournament.”

“Then she’s already close by this one, this.” She picked up the paper to read off of it more accurately. “‘Potential cache of cyberattack weapons’?”

Winston grumbled something under his breath about lab windows and dark ghosts, and McCree jumped in on this opportunity. “I’d be happy to go check it out. See if this information she’s trying to give us is worth a red cent.”

“Yes, it’s a good idea.” Winston agreed, clearly holding some personal grudge about Talon and cyberattacks. “I’ll go myself. We’ve got D.Va on the ground--any other volunteers?”

Brigitte raised her hand. “I’ll go.” The other people in the room looked at her and she shrugged. “I’m the only other person not fresh off of some other mission, and it sounds like we’ll want to move pretty quick, right?” She shot an apologetic glance at Reinhardt, and then at her father. This did not seem to be a mission suited to their particular talents. “Plus, I’m no Angela, but I can keep people patched up.”

There didn’t seem to be any objections to these points. “Well then.” Winston clapped his hands together. “We’ll leave within the hour.”

\--

Brigitte gritted her teeth as she braced herself against the barrage slamming into her shield. It wouldn’t hold forever, she knew, but maybe it would hold long enough. She hoped. Long enough to get them to the ship, long enough to take out these last few hostiles. Long enough.

Things had been going so well, too. The information was correct; there was, in fact, a cache of some weapons along subtler lines than guns, one of which Winston had recognized on sight. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been the only people to find it. 

It seemed that either Talon had come back for their stuff or another group using their methods had gotten wind of it too. It was unclear which group of people going for the same cache had set off the long-dormant defenses that destroyed the cache itself. The shootout had followed after and, due to the fact that this place was on the edge of a small town, they’d split up. Reduce collateral damage, pick them off, get back to the transport. Simple enough, until McCree and Brigitte had found themselves pinned down in the middle of a square under fire from several of the black-masked enemies.

“We gotta find cover,” McCree ground out, one hand on his hat to keep it below the top of her shield. “There.” He gestured past her head at an overturned car, its blue wheels spinning uselessly in the air. It would hold for a little while at least. She nodded.

“On three.”

Hearing no disagreement from him, Brigitte shifted her weight, ready to run. “One.” She hoped the shield would hold. “Two.” It would fail soon.

“Three.”

No time to think about it now, her booted feet pounding against the ground, her heart pounding in her throat, the bullets pounding against her shield.

And then they weren’t.

Her gasping breaths were echoed by McCree’s, both of them panting as they leaned against the car. Everything else seemed distant, a little too far away, her heartbeat too loud in her ears.

Which was when the pain hit.

McCree glanced at her from under the brim of his hat. “You all good there, Copperhead?”

Brigitte tried to answer, pulling the words from somewhere underneath the pain, some far country. “Uh, mhmm. Yeah.” She was definitely not fine.

McCree was nowhere close to being fooled. “Shit.”

Her gloved hand, when she pulled it from her side, was red. It shouldn’t be red.

“ _Skit_.”

“Shit.”

The curse in two languages came from both of them at once. McCree was the first to recover, shoving her hand back to her side and holding it there. He only removed his hand when she gasped and started applying pressure herself. 

“We’ve gotta get outta here.” Peering over the car, McCree pulled back the hammer on his gun. He probably only had one shot at this--or six, as it were--he wouldn’t get another chance. “I guess we know what time it is,” he muttered, half to himself. Even so, he was rewarded with a small, pained laugh from his side.

Four shots rang out, then a fifth straggler and in a matter of seconds the square was quiet. Much more like the small town outside of Seoul they’d come to in the first place. A breath, a moment more, and then McCree’s arm was dragging her up. “C’mon, time to go.”

Another gasp, then a quick nod. She was still holding tight to her side, he noted with approval, the shield deactivated. But she was looking oddly waxen and pale already. He had to get her out of here, and sooner rather than later. “Winston,” he called. “You out there?”

“Over here!” It wasn’t Winston’s gruff baritone, but Hana’s higher voice. McCree headed that direction anyway, slinging Brigitte’s free arm with its hammer across his shoulders.

They were halfway across the dusty square towards the young woman clambering out of her mech when Winston himself appeared from down a side alley. “Is everyone okay?”

McCree wasn’t even sure Brigitte’s breathy laugh was heard by anyone but him, but Winston definitely caught the gist of the situation. Picking up his pace he soon reached the pair of them. Hana, having also caught the mood, hurried into the small ship, her mech already strapped in, and the first sounds of startup began.

“Is she--are you okay?”

Brigitte weakly waved a couple of fingers on the hand that still clutched her flail. “Hey, Winston.”

Gently, Winston took the flail from her grip, a short sound of reassurance overcoming her brief resistance. Brigitte nodded her thanks and continued leaning heavily against McCree’s shoulder. Her world had narrowed to the door to the jet, and staying on her increasingly-numb feet, and McCree’s steady presence at her side. 

There was the ramp.

A seat.

A rumble as they took off way too fast--D.Va must be flying--and then nothing.

\- 

There was way too goddamn much blood. Everything smelled like copper and iron and dirt and--McCree took a breath, trying to regain the composure from his takedown of those drones. 

Brigitte had made it into the ship, leaning heavily against him, but still upright. “Let’s get a move on!” He didn’t waste a single second once Winston had slapped his palm against the pad to close the door.

Hana had taken him at his word, apparently, slamming the ship up into the air like she was the only one in it.

“Oh.”

The word was small, and surprised, and suddenly Brigitte was a dead weight hanging off of him. “Shit! Help me out here!” He called to Winston.

Winston had just finished stowing both his own weapon and Brigitte’s but hurried over, helping McCree get her to the seats, laying her out across three of them. 

Jesse cursed again after getting a better look at her. Pale, sweaty, shallow breathing, her hair sticking to her skin in strands. There was a lurch and Jesse caught himself on the side of the ship. He and Winston exchanged a look. “Go make sure she doesn’t kill us all first. I’ll look after Bri.”

Winston only hesitated a moment before nodding at McCree and casting one last worried look at the too-still girl laid out across the seats.

There was a second place in his head that he went sometimes. Shooting, driving too fast, anything where he had to concentrate only on doing the thing at hand and nothing else, he went there. Combat medicine was the same place, usually. He could push everything aside and do what had to be done.

But with her pale face and parted lips and shallow, pained breaths, he couldn’t concentrate. He felt like swearing or shooting or doing something, anything, to make her come back to her vibrant, quick self. 

Pressure. That he could do. Pressure where the blood was coming from. Make her comfortable, right, yes. Her armor was made for her, by her, a second skin, also punctured-- _shit_.

“How’s she doing?” Hana’s voice was soft, worried, but it still startled him. To his credit, the biggest reaction was a twitch of the fingers toward his empty gun.

“Uh.”

She might be young, but Hana was also trained in a brand of combat medicine. Enough to know where the first aid kit was stored, enough to press the bandages into his bloody hands, enough to sort through the packaged medicines and sprays. She pressed the cool metal of a pain-reliever-loaded spray against the thin skin of Brigitte’s neck, the drug coursing through her system with blood-swiftness.

“I think that’ll help.” Hana’s voice, when it came to matters of blood and bone, was softer, more tentative, not the confident girl encased in her metal mech.

McCree did his best to, if not smile, at least look reassuring. “Thanks, doll.” Brigitte was still too pale, too faded, too much blood lost, but at least her breathing was a little easier now.

Hana’s hands worked swiftly, smoothly, checking the rest of the kit, stowing things, sorting. “Is she--” She paused at McCree’s glance up at her. “Is she gonna be okay?”

One part of him--the part that saw a young girl thrust into a war she could only understand as a game--wanted to smile, to reassure, give her charming nonsense. Then there was the part that saw her as a fellow soldier, someone who had spilled and shed blood in this fight, no younger than he had been when he’d been thrust into the horrors of war.

“She’s fightin’.”

They flew on.

-

“Pappa.”

He was immediately at her side, his thick-fingered hand in hers. “Hey there, _gullebit_. I’m here.”

It was dark, and there was a general sort of awareness, but she couldn’t make sense of anything. There was a vague sense of Angela’s blonde halo of hair from her other side, an immediately reassuring presence. And there was her Pappa and he was focused on her, so it must be alright… right?

“But--”

“Ah, no, _älskling_. Sleep now. Rest.”

Angela echoed his words in a soft tone. “He’s right. Rest, _bärchen_.” 

She fell back down into the black well of sleep.

-

“Nnnngh.”

Sound came before anything else, then dulled pain. Her body’s stubborn pronouncement that it was still here, dammit, and it intended to be here for a while longer. 

“Brigitte?”

Ah, now that voice she knew. “Uhh, hey, Reinhardt.” Even the sliver of light that came through when she opened her eyes felt blinding, but she endured it for the sake of a look at her friend and mentor. He was eyeing her with worry. “My shield failed,” she confessed. It felt important that he know that.

His hand enclosed hers on the bed, patting reassuringly. “You did very well, my dear. The rest of your team is safe and alive, thanks to you.”

A tension she hadn’t realized she held, down in some deep place, relaxed abruptly. That, along with everything else, not least the painkillers in her system, sent her back into the realms of sleep, with only Reinhardt’s soft assurance to follow her. 

“Rest well, my squire.”

-

The darkness was more normal this time when she woke. Comforting, the base at rest after a long day. 

Or several days, Brigitte wasn’t really sure. 

Not that the small infirmary here in the Watchpoint ever got truly dark, between safety lights gently glowing and the light from the corridor filtering through.

“I’d say good evenin’, but you seem to have missed dinner entirely.”

Brigitte blinked, looking at the visitor she hadn’t realized was in the room until he spoke. McCree was, for once, without his hat or cigar (even an unlit one), though she saw at least the former laying on the counter next to the chair he occupied. 

“That’s too bad.” She found her voice, not as rusty as she feared it would be. “I’m famished.”

He rose and she watched him with faintly puzzled eyes. “I think I can probably get the good doc to rustle something up for ya.”

There must be pain meds in her system still, she thought, otherwise she wouldn’t have blurted out her next question in such an awful way. “What are you doing here anyway?”

McCree stiffened, his hand halting over his hat on his way to pick it up. At least the look that he cast her was confused, not offended. She hoped. She plunged on anyway, trying to explain herself and making a good argument for the impairing effects of some pain management efforts in the process. “I mean. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do… Unless Angela asked you to? …Or maybe Pappa?”

His confusion at her ramblings melted to a grin as he understood what she was trying to say. “The nice thing about this place not being a real hospital is there’s no such thing as visiting hours. Ang sent both your daddy and your knight off for some sleep and food. Threatened ‘em with some tranquilizers if they didn’t.” He paused, then patted her shoulder. “‘Sides, I wanted to see for myself that you were ok. Had me worried there for a little while.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She wanted to apologize for worrying him, but he waved off her first word with his hat in hand. 

“Nothing to apologize for. You did good.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I should be thanking you. We wouldn’t’ve made it out without your shield and all.”

Brigitte smiled up at him. She was sleepy, hungry, a little achy, but very happy to be alive. “Me too. I mean, you got me out of there, after. I remember that.”

He grinned back at her, sheepish, and shrugged. “I did my best. I'm more used to shootin’ than savin’, but there was no way I was gonna leave you out there.”

“True.” That much she knew, had never doubted it.

It was then that her stomach decided to give a huge grumble that made the both of them laugh, hers tinged with a bit of embarrassment. 

“I hear ya,” McCree replied. “I’ll go get the doc and see if she’ll get you a proper cheeseburger or something.” He leaned down and pressed a light kiss to her hairline, then jammed his hat on his head and left to go do what he’d said he would. 

Brigitte watched him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Swedish and Swiss German are based off of my very limited research. If you've more knowledge than me PLEASE let me know if I got anything wrong so I can fix it.
> 
> Gullebit = 'gold bit'  
> älskling = 'darling'  
> bärchen = 'little bear'


	5. Hold My Language Like an Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which recoveries are made, realizations are had, and maybe a little bit of kissy happens...

He had offered to stay with Brigitte, when Angela had shooed off Reinhardt and Torbjorn with gentle--but seriously meant--threats. He had stayed away, at first, rightly reckoning that Angela had more than enough to deal with given those two, and he didn’t want to distract from her expert medical care. She had updated him, after that first night, thanking him for his quick thinking and first aid. “It was very well done, Jesse. She’s going to be just fine, after she gets some rest.”

McCree shifted against the hallway wall outside of the room where Brigitte was resting. “She lost a lot of blood…” He began, uncertain.

“Not as much as she could have, and there wasn’t too much serious damage, fortunately. Easy enough for me to patch back up. Her armor helped, too,” she admitted. It wasn’t that Angela had been uncertain about the armor; she knew Brigitte was a fantastic engineer, just like her father. It was still just odd to think about her needing it at all.

“That’s good to hear.” McCree pushed off from the wall, then nodded to the approaching figure, unmistakably Torbjorn, at that height. “You let me know when these maniacs gotta be kicked out for their own good, I can take a spell looking out for her.”

Angela smiled at Torbjorn, then threw a wry look at McCree. “I’ll do that. Probably soon.”

McCree touched two fingers to the brim of his hat in a parting salute, and nodded to Torbjorn as he passed, going off to get some food and sleep himself, for as long as he could.

-

“I’ll go get the doc and see if she’ll get you a proper cheeseburger or something.” On impulse, he leaned down and kissed her hair briefly, before realizing what he was doing, jamming his hat on his head, and making a speedy retreat out of the room before she could say anything about it. 

Once he was down the hallway, far enough that he was out of sight of her room, he stopped, running a hand over his face. What the fuck had he been thinking? That wasn’t the sort of thing you did for a teammate you were worried about. He’d never kiss Winston or Genji like that (well, maybe Genji, but there would definitely be questions about it). But it had seemed like the thing to do, and he’d done it without thinking about it, really.

And it was then that Jesse McCree realized something and thought _shit_.

Angela’s appearance in the hallway saved him from his own thoughts for the moment. “Jesse? Are you alright?”

He laughed, unconvincing to his own ear. “Yeah, fine. Was just coming to find you, actually. Brigitte’s awake. Fair famished too.”

She smiled back at him, seeming not to catch the oddness of his laugh. “Wonderful! I’ll go check on her. Thank you for keeping an eye on her,” she said. Not to be kept from her patient for any longer than needed, she went on, sparing only a curious look back at McCree when he didn’t follow.

He offered no explanation as he left.

\--

“You,” Brigitte accused, “Have been avoiding me.”

Brigitte had finally cornered him, figured out his shortcut through the halls, grabbed his wrist and pulled him along in her wake. McCree hadn’t protested, just followed silently like a man to the gallows. They had ended up on one of the building roofs, stacked crates of supplies and other miscellanea providing a little bit of a windbreak and private spot up here. She had let go of him, crossed her arms, and stared him down for an explanation as she threw the assertion at him. 

For a brief moment, McCree thought about bluffing, denying it--but he realized that that would be lying. She knew it too. He’d been avoiding her, and this specific conversation, for almost a week. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her, to talk with her, but McCree did not feel ready to have this conversation. Then again, he didn’t know if he’d ever be. “Yeah.” 

It seemed like she had been expecting him to deny the accusation, and her scowl deepend. “ _Why_?” No answer was immediately forthcoming, so she went on. “Ever since the mission, I feel like you disappear faster than Tracer whenever I see you.”

“Since you woke up,” he corrected her. “In the infirmary.”

She only rolled her eyes a little, very obviously frustrated. “Fine, but why? Did I-- did I offend you somehow? Make you mad or something?”

“No, not at all, I--” Jesse pulled off his hat to run a hand through his hair. She waited for him to continue. “It’s just. Seeing you shot up, all that blood everywhere...” He trailed off, looking at the ground and not at her. He definitely wasn’t ready for this conversation. “All I could think was that I might lose you, and that scared the hell outta me.”

Brigitte frowned, tilting her head to study him. “This isn’t the first time someone’s been hurt on a mission. Even one of your teammates,” she pointed out. 

It was true, of course. She had been hurt worse than most with no other healer in the field, but it was still true. “I know, but,” another sigh, as Jesse looked at the floor like it might have an answer he could give her. “It wasn’t the same. I don’t _get_ scared. But when it was you…” He shook his head helplessly looking back up at her.

She stared at him, frustration melting to confusion with a small laugh. “What are you saying, Jesse?”

His chuckle echoed her own for nervousness as he ran a hand through his hair again, making the already messy strands stand on end. “Don’t rightly know, but. You’re more than just a teammate to me, I guess. And I was trying to figure out how to tell you, that’s why I was avoiding you. Stupid reason, I suppose, but,” He shrugged.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she realized how close he was to her, how different he looked with his hat off, how--without her armored boots--they were of a height. “More than just a teammate, huh?” _How much more?_ The thought flitted through her head.

Jesse was about to laugh again, fling out some quip like a stun grenade, and end this moment of whatever it was, she could tell.

_Well, why not?_

So she leaned forward and kissed him, catching the start of that laugh with her lips. 

His pause was long enough that Brigitte began to doubt herself, doubt that he had meant something like this, that this was too much, and began to pull away when he moved finally, cupping the the back of her head with his hand, deepening the kiss. When they parted for air and Brigitte opened her eyes, he was grinning at her giddily. “Yeah, kinda like that.”

And then he was kissing her again, pressing her up against the stacked crates, Brigitte pulling him to her. 

He was just beginning to entertain the idea of exploring further down, his beard scratching lightly at her neck, when they both caught the sound of someone clearing their throat as they came up the stairs. They sprang apart like two teenagers caught necking--which was too close to the truth for comfort--a few seconds before Genji emerged from the stairwell.

Jesse had jammed his hat back onto his head and Brigitte hoped her flushed face could be excused by the sunset light spilling across the strait. She had a feeling Genji wasn’t anywhere close to being fooled though, judging by the curious look he threw her, and the suspicious one directed at McCree. “There you two are. We have a mission briefing.” His tone promised a conversation or two, yes, but not just yet.

Message delivered and wayward members retrieved, Genji turned to go. Jesse and Brigitte exchanged a look and Brigitte felt the blush on her face deepen as she turned to follow Genji.

\--

“We leave in the morning, eight o’clock sharp.” Lena was doing her very best ‘serious’ impression, but it was clear that she was both excited and impatient to get going on this mission. “I miss anything, big guy?”

Winston shook his head. “I think that’s about it. Good luck and, uh. Stay safe out there.”

With that the group broke up, going their separate ways to get ready or go back to other duties. McCree lingered, hoping to catch Brigitte on her way out, but her father ushered her out, talking at her about some armor diagnostic he wanted to take a look at before she and the others left. The glance she shot at him over Torbjorn’s head clearly said she would have liked to talk to him too, but duty came first. 

Jesse figured he could give them a good fifteen minute lead time, enough time to get really into whatever they were doing with Brigitte’s armor before he ‘just happened to wander by’ the area of the Watchpoint that had become the Lindholm’s workshop. 

Lena had noticed him lingering instead of leaving with everyone else. “Anything to add, McCree?” Her tone was light, but he knew she was serious. It was just how she sounded.

“Nah. I mean, it’s a good team you’ve put together. Quick, smart, I think y’all will get the job done just fine. Though,” he added as she brightened. “You’re sure about Lindholm? She got injured last time.”

He knew she was a good choice, with her smaller, lighter shield and her speed that Reinhardt could only match with rockets, plus her engineering knowledge, well… But he still worried.

Tracer echoed his concerned expression. “Angela said she’s good to go, and Brigitte said she’s ready, so.” She shrugged. 

Those things were both true, Jesse had to admit. “I just hope Moira’s info is good this time,” he grumbled. 

“Here’s hoping.” Tracer’s tone was doubtful, but with an undertone of optimism he couldn’t quite summon himself. 

He figured that had probably been enough time. He patted Lena reassuringly on the shoulder. “You take care of ‘em out there, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Now don’t you have mission-prep-type-stuff to go do?” His tone was light, joking, back to their usual rapport.

“Haha, yep, I should get to that.” A quick salute. “See ya!” Tracer zoomed off with her usual speed, leaving behind that laugh of hers and an amused Jesse McCree. 

Pushing away from the wall, he made his way through the halls of the Watchpoint. Of course, other people used the space of the workshop as well, Winston, Hana, Lucio and so forth, but between the combined armor sets of Reinhardt and Brigitte, Torbjorn’s turrets and other pet projects like the Bastion unit Torbjorn had taken in, the space had very much been claimed by the Swedish faction of this ragtag band.

For a moment, Jesse lingered in the doorway, watching the two of them poring over some schematic, the backpiece of her armor on the table to one side. It wasn’t quite an argument, but it certainly had the potential. 

“I’m just saying, adding it wouldn’t affect weight distribution, and you’d have an extra weapon. In case things get sticky, eh?”

Brigitte sighed, sounding like she’d been through this same conversation half a dozen times before. It was her beloved father through, so she was always prepared to go another round with him. “Even if I were to think about adding such a thing, I wouldn’t take it out into the field all untested.”

Torbjorn grumbled, but did have to bow to this point of logic at least. “I suppose. Still, when you get back, we’ll talk about it.”

She shook her head with a fond laugh, but answered him with an “Of course, Pappa.” Catching sight of Jesse standing at the door watching, Brigitte patted Torbjorn on the shoulder. “You keep running those diagnostics. I’m going to grab a snack before I have to run around in my armor for hours.”

Torbjorn waved her off, grumbling fondly and accepting the kiss she dropped on his cheek with a smile.

Brigitte breezed out the door, pulling off her work gloves as he went and stuffing them into the back pocket of her coveralls. Jesse didn’t need the silent ‘c’mon’ tilt of her head, he was already following after her. After a few feet it was clear that, true to her word, she was headed for the kitchen. There was a back way that ended up being the shortest point from point workshop to point food, she had found out.

When he was sure they were far enough away from the workshop and no one else was about, Jesse swung her into a side corridor with a hand on her hip. She laughed against his lips as she pulled him to her by his shirt collar. A few minutes of this diversion and she gently pushed him away, the amusement and pleasure lurking at the corners of her lips. “I really do want snacks though.”

He almost made the rude joke, but her knowing look told him he didn’t need to since she was already thinking it. He simply followed in her wake when she grabbed his hand to pull him along with her. 

“Mei! Hey!”Brigitte realized she was still holding on to McCree’s hand and dropped it to wave at the other woman coming down the corridor towards them.

If Mei had noticed anything, she kept it to herself. Greeting the both of them and following Brigitte in the kitchen, Jesse bringing up the rear.

“So are you excited about the mission?” Mei was as bright as ever. “There might be a lot of useful data, and I’ve always wanted to visit the Brazil Ecopoint.”

“I don’t know about excited,” Brigitte replied. “ But I’ve never been there before, I can’t wait to see it.”

As they chatted, the two women moved around the place expertly, Mei making herself a cup of tea, Brigitte pulling something wrapped in brown paper from her personal cabinet. Jesse spotted a few other brightly colored sweets packages in there before she shut the door. “I just hope we don’t run into too many surprises. Nice and easy, that’s what I want.”

Mei glanced at her, a little worried. “That’s right… how are you feeling, after…” She trailed off, seeming to not want to actually reference the mission where Brigitte had nearly gotten herself killed.

“I’m fit as a fiddle, see?” Brigitte tucked her package under one arm and flexed the other, making Mei laugh. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Good.” Mei seemed genuinely pleased. With a goodbye wave at McCree, she went off to her own tea-fortified mission prep.

Properly provisioned now, Brigitte grabbed Jesse’s hand again to pull him along in her wake, away from the workshop. He happily followed.


	6. Hiding in the Lion's Mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are snacks, interruptions, old enemies, and Tracer's relationship-radar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay with posting a chapter. I set out to write a simple, shippy fic and then plot had the audacity to happen to me. Swedish coffee culture (including pastries) is fascinating, I won't lie. 
> 
> Still paddling this slow raft on rarepair river no worries lesgo.

“You keep a coffee machine in your room?” 

Brigitte turned from said machine to give him a glare that was only half mocking. “If you don’t want any you can just keep talking like that.”

Jesse held up his hands in mock surrender and she turned back to the little single-serving-maker as it puffed away on the end of the first cup. When they had arrived, she had waved him into the only available chair--her desk chair--as the guest, and he lounged in it now, watching her work, like she’d insisted.

Soon he had a steaming mug of coffee in his hands, and she was perched on her own desk waiting for the little machine to go through its cycle a second time. As it did, she pulled the paper-wrapped package she had retrieved from the kitchen into her lap, unwrapping it. McCree caught some handwriting on the outer wrapper, but it was quickly peeled aside, to reveal a sealed container. This too was pried open to reveal its contents covered with a thin layer of waxed paper just as her own cup of coffee was finished brewing.

Brigitte retrieved the mug, setting it down next to her, before offering him the tub, peeling back the wax paper. Revealed was a layer of freckled, golden buns tied into elegant knots, a warm smell rising up from them even though baking had clearly been several days past.

“It’s _kardemummabullar_ , uh, cardamom rolls. Like cinnamon but better,” she explained.

He reached in and lifted one of the buns out, finding to his surprise that it wasn’t sticky despite the fine layer of sugar over the top. Brigitte smiled and plucked her own bun from the box before setting it aside. 

As she took a bite of the pastry, McCree found he was a little distracted by the look on her face as the sweetness hit her tongue. Blissful was the only real way to describe it, he thought. He rushed to take a bite of his own pastry so as not to be caught staring. It really was quite good, and went really well with the actually-tasty coffee she had given him. No boiled dirt here, no sir. 

Brigitte smiled at him after her own sip of coffee. “It’s no _semla_ , but those don’t ship very well at all.”

“You really like your sweets, huh?” It was said with a note of fondness, and one of amusement too. 

She blushed. “Well. Plus Mamma’s baking is excellent,” she said in defense. 

“No argument here.” It really was delicious, warm and spiced, sugary but not cloying. Really, really good. McCree wasn’t always a big sweets person, but this he could get to like.

They ate in silence for a few moments, McCree getting just as much enjoyment out of watching Brigitte enjoy her pastry as he was out of eating his own bun. Finally he broke the comfortable silence with some small talk. “So, Brazil, huh?”

“Mm.” She sipped her coffee, looking contemplative. “I’ve never been there myself, but I know there’s some important data there.”

“Hence why y’all’re bringing Mei along with ya.” 

She nodded. “Yep. And I’m glad Lucio’s coming too. My Portuguese isn’t quite up to snuff,” she admitted. 

McCree shrugged this off. “You’ve got English, Swedish and probably a couple other languages all down, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.”

Brigitte laughed, granting that this was both fair and true, and they sat in the comfortable silence for a little while longer. 

Eventually though, the coffee was gone and the buns eaten. McCree had caught Brigitte giving the container a wistful look before shaking her head and shutting it, apparently resisting the temptation for a second bun. 

He stood, empty mug in hand, a few stray crumbs falling. “I should go. I, uh, wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.” He didn’t want to go, it was clear, especially as he’d made no move to set down his mug.

“Oh? And what idea would that be?” She grinned coyly at him over the rim of her mug.

Jesse McCree was no fool, and could certainly take an opening when one was so clearly offered to him. He leaned toward the desk, and consequentially toward her where she was perched. Stretching his arm past her, he plunked the mug down on the desk next to her leg. “Well, you know how people talk. They might think all sorts of things.” He was clearly getting into the humor of it, leaning into her just close enough that all she had to do was lean forward and--

“Things like this?” And with that she closed the distance between them, capturing his lips with hers. As the kiss deepened, he moved his hand to her thigh, the residual warmth radiating through her sturdy work trousers. 

He pulled back just enough to breathe, the taste of sugar and cardamom and bitter coffee still on his lips. “That’s certainly one option.”

With a grin he only caught the edge of in her eyes, she abandoned her own coffee mug to hook a finger into one of his belt loops, pulling him closer, fitting him between her parted knees. “Or maybe… like this.”

This time when he kissed her it was with more urgency, the fingers of his mechanical hand tangling in her hair as she kept her grip on his waist. McCree’s flesh-and-blood limb had just found the skin at her waist, brushing up under her shirt to the curve of her hip, her ribs, her--

Her handheld was chiming.

Brigitte was panting a little as she let out a stream of what sounded to McCree like vehement curses and he found he could only agree with a groan as he pulled away enough to let her pick up the device and look at it. Reading the message there, she groaned as well, dropping her head back and baring a stretch of long, elegant neck that McCree wanted to explore _right now_. 

To hell with the things people thought.

But Brigitte was nothing if not responsible and, like her mentor, she would answer when called. The dirty part of his mind wondered if she’d _come_ when called too, a thought he squished down immediately. His jeans were already uncomfortably tight, he didn’t need to make things worse for himself. 

Finally, it seemed, she had switched back to English. “I have to go. Pappa is wondering where I am. And I _don’t_ want him to come looking for me.” She grinned slyly, that wry edge to it.

“Riiiight.”

She pulled him in for another, short kiss, then let him go. With a little more room, she pulled out the hair tie that held up her ponytail, sticking it in her mouth. With a few practiced movements, she had swept her hair back up and secured it again, giving him a smile. “At least you've still got your hat, cowboy,” she teased.

Jesse tipped it back into place with two fingers of a salute, then made a grand gesture towards the door of her room. “After you, milady.”

Brigitte shook her head with a laugh, then swept past him, trying not to look surreptitious as she opened the door and scanned the corridor. “Coast’s clear,” she told him over her shoulder. 

Though she’d said so, he still checked, on impulse, then pulled her in for one last quick kiss. 

She was the one to break it, grinning giddily at him. “We should definitely continue this discussion later.” And then she was sauntering down the hallway toward the workshop, leaving McCree in her wake. 

\--

“It will be fine, Pappa. I promise.” Brigitte reassured her father with a hearty pat on the shoulder, which she then turned into the smallest of hinting shoves. “You're making yourself data-crazy, and I need my sleep before I go haring off halfway around the world.”

“Alright, alright.” Torbjorn allowed himself to be ushered to the door of the workshop, then out, as Brigitte accompanied him. Apparently no sneaking back to the lab to run ‘just one more’ diagnostic or test, not if his daughter had anything to say about it.

They stopped in front of the door to the room Tobjorn had claimed as his own, a corridor over from Brigitte's. It opened at her touch and she shooed him inside. “Go sleep,” She said.

“Ah, the nagging,” he joked fondly.”You're getting to be as bad as your mother.”

She laughed. “Yes, yes I am.” She hugged him, dropping a kiss on top of his head. “Go.”

He went, the door sliding shut. 

Suddenly, Brigitte was very aware that she was standing just a few doors down from McCree's room. She could go, she thought, walk just a few meters, knock on the door, and--

The thing that was holding her back, when she came right down to it, was the mission. Duty versus pleasure, that old crux. It was time and past time she was in bed, she knew.

 _Time and past time_ , she bit her lip, torn. 

Finally, with a sigh, she turned, making her way to her own room and her own bed, instead.

\--

The Aurora rose through the early-morning mist over the Mediterranean into the blue sky beyond, Tracer comfortable at the controls of the small craft. It wasn’t her usual vehicle, sure, but there wasn’t any need for the larger capacity of the Orca. Besides, the landing zone had looked a bit overgrown on the satellite imagery. The usual array of ‘good luck’s and ‘see you later’s had been exchanged in the hangar earlier, as the four of them had piled selves and gear into the Aurora.

It hadn’t been elaborate, or anything really out of the ordinary, but then, the last mission they had sent people out on wasn’t supposed to have been a big deal either.

Brigitte kept her goodbyes to a hug from her father, a hearty handclasp from Reinhardt, and a fleeting look, toward the back there, at the lone figure standing almost as if he didn’t want to be seen by anyone else.

The downward tilt of his hat was enough, for now. She returned the nod, then made her way up the ramp, the bag with the rest of her gear heavy in her hand.

Brigitte settled into the chair beside Lena, the majority of her gear stowed. Down the short stairs, Lucio was continuing his crash course in the Important Music (as he saw it) that Mei had missed during her nine years ‘away’ (the polite euphemism went). Mei had taken to it with her infectious good cheer, and any time the two spent together so far was spent on this project. Brigitte was given to understand that Hana's suggestions had been taken much more readily than Reinhardt's, but the shared Eurovision-heavy playlist generated by several of the team members (who would have thought Zenyatta Mondatta would have been such a fan anyway) was still under Lucio's judicious review. 

The craft could have practically flown itself for most of this trip, but Lena always felt more comfortable being up at the controls anyway. You never knew when something might go wrong, after all. She graced Brigitte with a smile, pulling off the headset she'd been using to eavesdrop on the automated communications between Athena and various traffic control systems. “Looks like it's gonna be a nice smooth flight over,” she commented lightly. 

Brigitte smiled back, settling back into the seat as much as the back piece of her armor would allow. “Here's hoping everything else goes as smooth, hm?”

Lena hummed agreement, rechecking one or two instruments before settling back into her own chair. A moment of quiet passed, only the hum of the engines to break it.

“I never asked, how are you holding up?”

Brigitte looked up at her from the panel she had been eyeing curiously. “Me?” She shrugged, tracing a finger along the top edge of the stomach piece of her armor. “Angela says I'm right as rain, so that's that, eh?”

“Hm?” It seemed Lena had been asking after something different. “Oh, that, well, yeah. I mean she'd've never have let you come along if you weren't. But I mean with,” she gestured around, encompassing not only the small craft around them, but even more generally. “All of this, the recall and Overwatch and everything. Reinhardt seems to be doing pretty good.”

This was, of course, an understatement. “Reinhardt is doing amazing. The recall went out and it was like,” she sighed, remembering his reaction when they'd received the message. “Like he'd been waiting for a message like that for years.”

Lena laughed. “That sounds just like the big guy.”

She hadn't wanted him to come back, had tried to convince him otherwise. Not due to cowardice, not her, but anger and pain and memories. It was like she had gathered up every scrap of bitterness Reinhardt had chosen not to keep and hoarded it to herself. But to think of relating that to Lena made her stomach cold with a leaden feeling. “I think the only thing is he wishes he could do more, y'know?”

“Yeah...” Evidently it was a feeling Lena empathized with. “But!” She sat up straighter and simultaneously tucked a leg under herself. “He was here _before_ , you know. Back then. But how are you doing?”

Ah, so that was the bent of her initial inquiry. This too was met with a shrug though. It was hard, putting words to everything that had happened, even in just the short time the small team had existed in its current form. “Pretty good, I guess. It's a change, from wandering around Europe with Reinhardt. Trouble tends to come to _us_ , for one thing.”

Lena gave a snort of laughter at the truth of this joke. “And then we go to it.”

“But there's a part of me that just can't help worrying about, you know. All of this.” A wave of her hand to indicate the jet, the mission they were currently on, and the new, ersatz Overwatch by proxy. “I mean,” her voice went dry. “None of this is exactly legal.”

“No,” Lena said slowly, tilting her head in agreement. “But neither was what you and Reinhardt were doing before.”

“Yeah, but…” Why was it different, really? “But now, the stakes are so much bigger. If we got in trouble then, it was just the two of us, that's where the trouble would stop. Now…” She trailed off, thinking of the illicitly-operating Watchpoint with its crew of vigilantes and lawbreakers and more besides. 

“One person is lone vigilante, even with a sidekick; more than one, and you're something else, right?” It was clear that Lena had been thinking about this thorny problem as well.

Brigitte nodded, watching her fingers trace the edge of her repaired armor again. “And that,” she waved a hand to acknowledge ambiguity. “Whatever we are, it's my family too. Not only Reinhardt, but Pappa too, and Angela, and everyone else too, in a way. If we go down, if they decide to take us down…”

She didn't need to go on, she could see as much. So instead she shrugged again. “But yeah. Everyone who knew me back then is starting to get I'm not that little girl anymore, and anyone who didn't is seeing that I'm more than just the next Lindholm engineer. So I guess I'm doing pretty well, all told.”

“Phew, that's quite a lot to be dealing with!” Lena laughed though. Brigitte quite admired Lena's cheerful approach to everything from practical jokes to test pilot accidents, when she thought about it.

“But hey, it could be worse.”

“Hm? How’s that?”

“You _could_ be dealing with boyfriend or girlfriend stuff on top of it all!” Lena was joking, Brigitte knew, but her reaction to the joke wasn’t quite quick and flippant enough. She had definitely picked up on that little bit of hesitation Brigitte hadn’t quite managed to hide. Lena leaned forward, eyeing her.

“Oh ho?” Lena’s eyes were suddenly bright, sparkling with her summations. The problem, Brigitte thought to herself, was that Lena was observant, smart, and now had a captive audience. _Maybe ‘victim’ is more like it._ “So there _is_ something along those lines then, hm?”

“It’s nothing like that, come on,” Brigitte protested, but Lena had hit this one too close to home for comfort, and Brigitte knew protesting would only convince her further, so she shut up in the face of Lena’s grin.

Brigitte could practically see the gears turning, as Lena ran through the list of those currently or recently at the Watchpoint. “Hmm.” She was up out of her chair now, standing to peer down at the still-seated Brigitte. “Hmmmm.” Brigitte blinked and suddenly Lena was peering at her from the other side. “Hmmm.” Another flash, and she’d changed positions again, seated back in the pilot’s seat, cross-legged, peering forward at Brigitte. “Ooo,” her eyes went wide, and Brigitte gazed back in suspicion. Lena’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Is it a certain musician friend?” With a flick of her eyes, she made it clear she meant Lucio, not ten meters away from them.

Brigitte blinked at this interesting conclusion, tilting her head in thought. “Lucio? I mean, I’m a huge fan of his, that’s true…”

“Hmm.” Lena leaned back again, seemingly disappointed that she hadn’t hit on the right answer with her first go. “Oh, maybe it’s that pretty Russian lady that we ran into recently?”

Brigitte laughed at this one. Zarya had certainly left an impression on them all, in her brief encounter at the watchpoint a few weeks back. Apparently she was on some investigation into Talon activities, and where better to potentially find information than the group Talon seemed to hate the most? “She was really cool, I’d certainly love to get to know her better.” It was a completely honest answer.

Also, clearly, not the one Lena was looking for, as she sat back with a pout. “Hmmm, well” She drew the word out. “I don’t think you’re pining after some tall, noble Viking-esque boy or girl back home,” Brigitte confirmed this with a shake of her head. “So, give us a hint here!”

Brigitte laughed. “I’d rather focus on the mission at hand, rather than my romantic options--or lack thereof,” she teased, gesturing to the headset around Lena’s neck. It was a good thing it was wireless, otherwise she’d have pulled it right off of her with the first jaunt around the cockpit. There wasn’t much chatter over the comms, here over the Atlantic, but it was better to be safe.

Lena giggled, sliding the headset back on. “Alright, alright, play coy!” She grew serious again, or at least as serious as she ever got. “But really, if you ever need, like, advice or just a listening ear you know you’ve got me, right? After all, we’re practically family.”

Brigitte rose from the co-pilot chair to go check down below real quick. “I know, Lena. Thanks.”

-

If there was a textbook mission, this would not, in fact, be it. Everything went far too smoothly to ever end up in anything but the successful footnotes of history. The trickiest bit had been landing, even with the smaller craft, thanks to the enthusiastic jungle growth. Even that hadn’t been that bad once Mei disembarked and proclaimed the extra plant life an encouraging sign of rainforest recovery.

No dangers had been lurking unexpected in the long-dormant base, blueprints and handtools and so forth all where they had been left. Mei pulled years worth of climate data from the computers, setting them to run for another ten years if needed. The extra batteries and tools they left to the local population. Lucio, with his native Portuguese and five or so words picked up in a few of the languages of the area, was the best help there, building a rapport with the people who had watched this awkward craft land itself no one else could have hoped to. Natural charisma, Brigitte thought, watching him from the door of the Aurora. 

A flurry of goodbyes and other parting words, and Lucio was headed back towards the rest of them, grinning. “I think they’re gonna get a lot of good outta those batteries,” he informed the three waiting women.

There was no telling whose grin was most luminous, among the four of them. Lena clapped her hands together decisively. “Great! Now that's what I call a job well done.”

With that, they all piled in to go home.

\--

“The more time we give them to build this thing back up,” the Reaper growled. “The more work it will take to pull it down around their ears.”

The man at the head of the table opened his hand in a gesture that granted that point, though nothing further. This was, it seemed, not good enough for the self-proclaimed phantom. “We should strike _now_ , crush everything and everyone there, make an example out of this little charade.”

Reyes, Moira reminded herself as she watched this interplay, was a fanatic, too caught up in his own twisted twinned desires for revenge and leverage that he sometimes forgot one when the other was in sight. Her wants and eyes lay elsewhere, on other goals, which gave her a certain objective distance on the tangled, broken mind she had helped, in her own way, to create. It was certainly an experiment with unexpected and interesting results, thus far.

“The time is not right-” their apparent leader began, but the Reaper cut him off, fist slamming on the table, smoke curling around it.

“We should strike now!” The distorted voice bordered, as close as he could get, on a shout.

Akande gazed back at him, demeanor icy. Silence reigned for several long moments. Moira wondered clinically who would break first. In contrast to the Reaper’s growl, Akande's voice was smooth as Damascus steel. “We are not here to throw away resources on your petty vengeance on a few men and a monkey.” Reaper growled but did not reply. The larger man ignored this sub-verbal threat, continuing. “We will strike when the time is right. Not before.”

He sat back, coolly raising a brow. “Unless you wish to have no part in such things at all.” Akande had no need for overt threats. It was a style Moira appreciated. 

There was another long moment that might have looked like a standoff to the outside eye, but finally the Reaper gave a last growl and gave it up, sinking back into his seat, half-swallowed in shadows. 

Moira was always amused to see the big, scary boogeyman she'd helped make in a sulk.

Satisfied that he would have no more resistance from that corner at the moment, Akande turned to Moira now. “So, Doctor, what stories shall we feed next to this group of fools and children?”

Moira's smile was all sharp edges as she leaned forward to answer.


	7. So Take a Bite and Let it Linger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Moira takes her leave, plot has the audacity to keep happening, and the fic earns its rating in two languages!

Moira stood, placing her palms flat on the table. “As… _edifying_ as these last two weeks have been, I have a job to get back to.”

Everyone in the room for the short-but-sweet debriefing of the last mission looked up at her. Moira shrugged at the attention she was suddenly on the receiving end of, unfazed. “I have important research waiting for me in my lab, after all.”

There were some shared looks among the other occupants of the table at mention of research. It seemed the memories of what her research had used to consist of were not far enough in the past for everyone’s tastes. Angela shifted uncomfortably, then shrugged. “It’s not as if we are keeping you prisoner,” she said slowly. 

“Indeed not.” Moira’s voice held a dry twist to it, as if the very idea of this ragtag group being able to hold her prisoner was humorous as a very concept. 

Winston peered over his glasses at her. “There’s no doubt you’ve brought us some valuable information,” he granted, some of the papers still held in his grasp.

Moira waved this off as if it were nothing. “If I run into any additional information I think you will find of use, rest assured, I’ll find a way to get it to you,” she reassured them airily. 

Brigitte sat back, watching this interplay between former Overwatch members. Also interesting to her was the other new people on the team and how they were taking it. Lucio was also sitting back, taking it all in, all his contributions apparently having been offered during the briefing. Mei’s face was closed off, though her eyes kept flicking back to Moira, almost wary somehow. 

No one said anything for a long moment, before Moira rapped a knuckle on the table and straightened. “If there are no objections, I believe I will take my leave of you all.” With that, she swept out of the room, as regal as a queen. 

Brigitte could practically feel the tension go out of the room with her, a little ripple of a sigh passing among the remaining occupants. That had certainly been an interesting exit, after Moira had sat quietly through the whole debriefing. No questions, nothing to add, to the point where Brigitte had almost forgotten about her presence in the back of the room. 

“Well then!” Lena clapped her hands together, getting things back on track and towards wrapped up. At least, so Brigitte hoped. “Unless anyone’s got more to add?” The group of people all looked around at each other and shook their heads in turn. “I think that’s it then?” The question was mostly directed at Winston.

He returned an open-palmed gesture. “I think so.”

“Right.” Lena grinned at them all. “Nicely done everyone. Now let’s go celebrate a job well done.”

\--

He did not want to be in the debriefing, he’d decided. Not when Moira was in the room, for one thing. Any way he could avoid her presence here on the all-too-small base was fine by him. On the opposite end of things, Brigitte was in there. McCree would be sure to field curious questions about why he was in there if he didn’t have anything to add. Plus he wasn’t too sure he trusted his imagination not to go wandering to her if things ended up boring.

McCree decided that waiting outside once they were hitting what should be the tail end of the briefing would be just fine. He could catch Brigitte on her way out and suggest they go get something to eat--or better yet, a coffee and a continuation of the conversation they’d been starting the day before.

He certainly wasn’t expecting Moira to be the first, and only, at the moment, person to emerge from the small conference room. His hope to go unnoticed by her died, and he gave her a nod as she approached. Not too welcoming, but definitively civil. 

Moira paused by him, exactly what he didn’t want, and he eyed her suspiciously. She gazed back at him, some internal dialogue he knew nothing about going on under the surface. “I suppose you’ll be glad to hear I’m leaving, for the time being.”

“Well it certainly doesn’t make me _un_ happy.” It was about as polite as he felt like he could muster up at the moment.

She contemplated him for another uncomfortable moment, then said, “You know, you did me a bad turn once, Jesse McCree. By all rights I should return the favor.”

He gave her a look, confused and skeptical. Silently, he was a little worried about what Moira would consider a ‘bad turn’, especially if that was what she was calling Blackwatch’s ignominious fall and his instrumentality in it. “I did _you_ a ‘bad turn’?”

Moira eyed him calmly, not rising to the bait. “But instead I will be the better person, and give you a warning. One you would do well to heed.” 

McCree couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her. But, as irritating and ridiculous as he found her, he was not enough of a fool to pass up freely-given information. Well, seemingly free. “Oh yeah? What’s that, then?”

“There isn’t enough information to pass on to anyone officially speaking; not even quite enough information for our compatriots to act on.” A flick of the wrist indicated the room full of folks still debriefing, and by extension the rest of those associated with this new Overwatch.

McCree held on to his skeptical look, arms crossed. “So all you got is rumors and hearsay?” His tone indicated what he thought about _that_. 

“Rumors and hearsay that a certain gang with which you were once affiliated has been up to something. Gathering resources, allies, and so forth.”

It felt like a bucket of ice had just been poured down his spine, ending in a phantom twinge in the limb he no longer had. “The Deadlock Gang? That’s-- last I heard they were all dead as doornails, or ‘bout to be. Myself excepted.”

Moira shrugged, as if it was none of her concern. “I am simply passing along what I’ve heard. Now, I really must be going.” 

And then, before McCree could summon up any further questions to grill her with, she had walked away, a little wave of one long-nailed hand over her shoulder as a farewell. 

Jesse McCree was left standing in the hallway, staring after her and trying to decide just how screwed he was going to be.

“Hey.” There was a hand at his elbow and McCree started, jerked out of his thoughts. Brigitte looked at him oddly. “You alright?”

He was a little embarrassed about the fact that she’d snuck up on him like that, but relaxed enough to give her a smile. “Now that we’re seeing the tail end of Ms. Mad Science? Never better.”

Brigitte grinned back at him. “Good.” He let her take his hand and pull him down the hallway, towards quarters, where he followed with a will. It was clear she had celebration of a job well done in mind. 

They didn’t run into anyone on their way there, and as soon as they were safely inside her room, she turned and pressed him into the door with an enthusiastic kiss. He enjoyed that for a moment before turning the tables on her. With her hips against her work desk, he could get leverage, and with leverage came friction and with that came that little gasping, breathy laugh he was learning to like.

As he trailed his kisses down her neck, she pushed him back a little. He looked at her to find her grimacing slightly. “Jesse, your hat…” Her look broke into a grin with her laugh. “It keeps bopping me in the face!”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t leave the hat on?” His tone was clearly teasing as he tipped it back with two fingers, as if greeting her in the hallway. 

“Exactly.” Laughing, she plucked it from his head and reached behind him to place it firmly atop her little coffee machine, where it perched jauntily. 

That detail taken care of, she set to work again, her fingers making quick work of the buttons on his shirt, and he broke away from her kiss long enough to pull hers off over her head. Her blush, he noted with a grin as he freed a full breast from its practical black bra, went all the way down.

He lowered his mouth to the one he'd freed, adequately distracting her, judging from the noises she was making, from anything short of an explosion. He was delighted to discover that this bra had a front clasp--no fumbling around in the back, not that he wasn’t without practice at that maneuver--and soon he could pay attention to both breasts. 

When his hand drifted lower, tugging on the drawstring of the comfortable pants she’d had on for the debrief, she inhaled sharply, and he pulled back to look at her face. “Y’all right?”

Brigitte smiled at him, still blushing and breathing faster, but seemingly happy. “Never better. Though this desk is a little, ah, precarious. And we’ve far too many clothes on,” she added, even as she pushed his unbuttoned shirt down over his arms.

He shook off the garment, then gave another tug on the drawstring, the tie coming undone. “Right, yeah. I mean, as fun as this is, I think the bed has, uh, a little more room” he said with a grin, catching his breath a little.

Brigitte laughed, gave him a light push on his bare chest in the direction of her bed, and followed with a will. 

-

Stretching her long limbs, Brigitte rolled off the bed and onto her feet, and he watched her as she made her way to the little en suite to clean up. When she returned a few moments later, his anticipation of her nestling in back next to him was disappointed as she opened up the closet and began rummaging through a drawer for clothes. 

He watched her for a moment, curious but content, before asking languidly, “Got somewhere to be?”

She shot him a smile, then pulled a clean t-shirt on over her head. “As a matter of fact I do.”

“Oh?”

“I promised Pappa and Reinhardt I’d let them take me out for post-mission drinks,” she explained, running a hand through her hair and pulling it up into her usual high-ponytail. She sat on the bed, leaned over him to give him a long, slow kiss that he very much enjoyed, then pulled back to start putting on a pair of jeans. “You’re welcome to come along, if you like.”

Jesse considered her airy invitation, his own, undressed form, and the other invitees to this small gathering. “I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he began, but she was already shaking her head. 

“That’s ridiculous, you’re always welcome.”

He allowed as this was fair with a tilt of his head, then made to sit up. “Ahh, I knew you’d be a mean one, kickin’ me out of bed right after we had so much fun.”

Brigitte laughed as she picked his shirt up from the floor and tossed it lightly at him. “You’re welcome to stay and get your beauty sleep. I know I wouldn’t mind coming back to a handsome man in my bed.”

“I will keep that in mind.” Despite the teasing, he levered himself out of her bed, comfortable as it was, and set about gathering up his things, with her help.

He pulled her in for one last kiss before she parted from him with a laugh, taking it out of the room with her, and he followed.

\--

“What do you even need this information for anyway?”

Sombra's tone was idle curiosity, but Moira knew that could conceal anything from actual idleness to malicious intent. It would be interesting to see which way she was leaning on this one. “Is it important that you know?”

The girl popped her gum, sparing Moira nothing more than a side-eyed look. “I dunno, it could be.”

All the while she was talking her fingers kept flying over the keys, windows shunted aside or dismissed as required. It was an efficiency of attention Moira might admire, if the other half of it weren’t focused on her at the moment.

It seemed silence wasn’t satisfactory either though, as Sombra swiped all the windows there aside with a flick of a gesture. “So.” She turned in her chair to face Moira.

Moira wondered if the girl thought she looked intimidating like this, lit obliquely by her screens. She had a lot to learn in that department, if that were so. “So what have you found?”

Sombra plucked a graphical cube from the display, setting it to a twirl. “ _So_ , I’ve found a few interesting tidbits here and there. _No quise leer esa mierda, pero aquí. Es la útil._ ” She held the cube out as if offering it to Moira. 

Moira knew better. Instead of reaching out for the cube, Moira crossed her arms, looking unimpressed. “Have you?”

“Mmm.” The younger woman broke first, rolling her eyes, tossing the cube in the air and catching it without effort, since it weighed virtually nothing, literally. “So I was _thinking_ ,’ she drawled, watching for Moira’s reaction in what she seemed to think was a covert manner. “Maybe our Mister Doomfist would be interested in some of this information too?”

The unconcerned shrug was certainly not the reaction that the young hacker been expecting, an observation that Moira noted with a smirk. “Feel free. If he hasn’t seen it already, I suppose.” Truly, Moira had no idea whether Akande would even care about the remnants of the old Deadlock Gang, but even if he did, she could work with that. 

There was a moment where Moira wasn’t entirely sure which way Sombra would react, but her apathy won out in the end. “Tch, fine, all the info you could ever want on who’s left of the Deadlock Gang, _fresa_.” With this, she flicked the cube into an icon of an envelope, sitting at the ready on her virtual desktop to send it to Moira’s computer. “Plus a few extras I thought you might find interesting too. Wouldn't want you to get bored or anything.” Her tone was mocking, but Moira didn't rise to the bait. Sombra, as they all did, had her own pet projects going on at any given time, and sometimes chose to pass on tidbits if she thought she could use one of the others in her little schemes. Generally Moira ignored these, but every once in a while something caught her eye, or intersected with her own plans, or could be used as a bargaining chip, so she let it go. 

“Grand,” Moira drawled, taking her exit with a lazy wave over her shoulder. She chose to ignore whatever mutterings Sombra gathered to herself in her little lair. Moira had bigger fish to fry than one just-past-teenage hacker, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish swear words, whee! I'm indebted to a friend for help with finding a Spanish-speaker to help out on short notice so that Sombra doesn't sound like the _gringa_ that I am. Still, if there are any issues they are my own fault, but please let me know, and I will do my best to fix them!
> 
> Plot keeps happening, and is going to really kick off in the next chapter or so. Because of course it's right after they've gotten together ~~finally~~!


	8. I've Changed My Song to Match Each Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Moira plots, Brigitte goes to a party, and Genji gets all Big Brother on his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: whoops, always remember to close your tags, folks...

“It’s been _weeks_ since you got back from that rock, and you’ve _nothing_ to show for it.” Reaper showed himself into the space Moira used as an office whenever she was in Venice with this pronouncement.

Moira raised an immaculately-groomed eyebrow at the accusation, slowly turning to face Reaper. “On the contrary, I’ve plenty. Just because you can’t see it…” She trailed off, leaving the implication of his blindness or stupidity in the air.

Black cloak, white mask, taloned gloves--Gabriel had always had a flair for the dramatic, she supposed--a tall dark figure leaning against the wall just inside the door that stood ajar. “Enlighten me then, doc,” he drawled sarcastically.

“If I must.” With a shrug, she turned on her heel back to the computer in front of her, pulling up images on the screen. Some of them were familiar: an old file photo of Winston, a mugshot of McCree, the Omnic monk Tekhartha Zenyatta, and so on. Other ones, new ones, Moira carefully placed these next to the more familiar ones. Even Gabriel should be able to recognize things like the Bastion unit, or the pulse rifle that had been stolen a while back from another old Overwatch base. She would have to explain most of the items there, she knew, but that was fine.

Once finished, she spun back to present the screen to him with a flourish, leaning against the waist-high desk. He would need explanations, yes, but she was willing to make him ask for it, instead of offering them up without prompting. It wasn’t clear how one could tell what he was looking at, behind that ridiculous mask, but he spent a few seconds examining the screen before looking back at her. “I don’t see anything I couldn’t get off the database. Or the news.”

“What you are not seeing are the opportunities these things present to us.” Her tone suggested that, well, of _course_ he didn’t see such things.

She pulled the image of the Bastion unit closer, and one of Lindholm’s old design schematics. “For example, after that mess up in Sweden with the old Bastion unit showing up, apparently Lindholm took the thing in, instead of destroying it. The man who helped to design them, taking one of these machines in. Imagine the chaos it will cause when that news gets out.”

With a flick of her fingers, she dismissed those two images, pulling up Winston’s picture and one of the images that Lucheng Interstellar had released, then an image that Sombra had gotten her access to. It was blurry, but still clearly the capsule that Winston had used for re-entry, with something else tethered to it. “Another example; I’ve come to believe our dear ape may not have been the only escapee from the moon. Whatever and wherever this ‘Hammond’ is, he may prove a useful tool.”

These too were dismissed, and Moira pulled up McCree’s mugshot, and an article about the train heist that Talon had, in Moira’s opinion, botched completely, despite achieving their objective. At least McCree was taking the blame for an operation that had gone so poorly. “The cowboy is the one with the biggest bounties on his head who is clinging to that rock at the moment, but there are others. And they all have enemies.”

Gabriel’s reaction to seeing McCree was a low growl. “Tell me why we’re not just going there and killing them now?”

“Must I explain it again? They’re a destabilizing influence. Their presence causes trouble. Trouble that we like, and can use,” she intoned, sounding bored, like explaining something to a dull child. The other reason, the one she kept to herself, there were some people there who she’d rather not see get shot up by a murder-happy ghoul like Reaper.

“Don’t patronize me, woman.” He was losing his patience, yes, she was pushing and prodding him right over the edge.

It was amusing to her, an experiment to see how far she could go with it before he snapped. “I made you, Gabriel, don’t forget that.” Moira’s voice was sharp and soft as a knife, the threat buried in her words. She had made him what he was and she could surely unmake him just as easily. “Though here I was thinking you were something smarter than your average tin soldier.”

The growl from under the mask was likely accompanied by that sneer she remembered so well. That sneer he no longer had with that silly mask. She smirked. “I’m all for getting rid of small problems before they become bigger ones, but that’s no call to go about it like an idiot.”

At the blatant insult, the growl increased in volume, the smoke swirled around her, and Moira held the gaze of the mask’s empty eye sockets as he tried to dominate her with his presence. “You’re trying my patience.” It was half growl, she made out the words anyway. A swirl of smoke resolved into a clutch of fingers around her throat, not squeezing, not just yet, but threatening to.

Moira got the impression he’d be gratified if she showed she was even the slightest bit intimidated by his ghastly presence. “Always one of your weak points, that,” she drawled, her eyes flicking down, then up, still unconcerned.

He seethed. His grip tightened--and she snapped her fingers.

The grip dissolved to smoke, the place where his legs had been swirling back into that darkness, and Gabriel Reyes choked. With a minimum of effort, Moira’s boot found the most solid part of his torso and gave a short, sharp kick. He collapsed, drawing breath through sheer effort.

Moira stared down at him, only the very hint of a sneer playing on her lips, like it would be too much effort to grant him the full expression of her disdain. “ _You_ \--” He rasped, the anger and desperation rasping his voice rough.

“Yes.” Her reply was hard-edged, flinty, as she snapped her fingers again, bending down to pluck a piece of shadow from the miasma. “ _Me_.” She held the shadow figure by the chin, the rest of it curling before her subserviently. “And we do this my way.”

Even if he had wanted to argue, there wasn’t really any solid ground on which he could do so. In token defiance, he growled again. Moira snorted at this show of resistance and let him go with a flick of her fingers. “So,” he finally ground out. “What exactly is _your way_?”

After all, if she was going to destroy someone, the Reaper would rather it was his enemies.

\--

“Are you sure? I’m sure I could come up with some sort of little emergency that needs our two best engineers back here right quick.” Her handheld was a pretty good quality one, but there was still that faint tinniness to go with the small image of McCree. She could still watch his gaze travel as far down the the image of her form as the format allowed. “I could appreciate that dress on you _properly_.”

Brigitte laughed, brushing her hair back from her face in an automatic gesture. Wearing it down was always so odd for her. “I think the dress would not be spending much time _on_ me being appreciated,” she teased.

“What can I say? I’m an appreciative man.” He smirked on the other end of the video call and she laughed again.

“It’s fine, Jesse.” She smiled. “We’ll go, wave at some cameras, eat rubber chicken and drink free champagne. People will spend the evening ignoring me and either fawning after Pappa or cursing him under their breath when they think they can’t be heard, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Easy as pie.”

“As I understand it, pie can be pretty hard to make,” Jesse pointed out.

Brigitte rolled her eyes fondly. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. You still be careful, y’hear?”

She shook her head fondly. “I’ll keep myself in one piece. Promise.” At the sound of her name from the other room, she answered. “Coming, Pappa!” Back to her handheld. “Gotta go.”

“Knock ‘em dead, Copperhead.”

She blew him a kiss, then ended the call, stuffing the device back into her all-too-small handbag.

Ingrid had come out to meet the two of them, though she had begged off going to the event herself, pointing out that it was the famous engineers Lindholm invited to this event. She had done enough of this sort of thing back in the days when Overwatch was actively celebrated, after all.

Torbjorn had been content to ignore the courtesy invitation, some fundraising gala for a science institute. But someone had put out the suggestion that appearing in public at something unconnected with Overwatch and the renewed activity at Watchpoint: Gibraltar that officials were studiously ignoring would prove useful. The vague suggestion had turned into actual encouragement and Brigitte had been mustered up as her father’s plus-one. The idea was to show that the Lindholms, at least, were not involved in any kind of illegal activity on certain mediterranean rocks, see?

Besides, there was the promise of free champagne as the rich and smart were out being rich and/or smart with each other.

Ingrid smiled at her daughter, smoothing down her hair. “Don’t let him get into too much trouble,” she told Brigitte fondly.

Torbjorn grumbled about how things ought to be the other way around until Ingrid laughed and kissed him again before shooing the two of them out to their waiting ride.

-

Brigitte doubtfully eyed the small cadre of reporters waiting outside the hall, but her father lead them past, ignoring the shouted questions entirely. Normally Brigitte was glad to escape being the center of attention, but she wasn’t sure about this. “Shouldn’t we go, you know.” She waved a hand. “Be seen and all?”

The look Torbjorn Lindholm shot back over his shoulder at the press corps as they entered the hall through the grand doors was not exactly a warm one, but he kept those feelings to himself for the moment. “Of course, of course. After we, ah, fortify ourselves.” He gave her a wink, then headed for the drinks table, Brigitte following in his wake.

It was not long before they had attracted a small crowd of people around them--after all, her father was not exactly unremarkable in his appearance, though sometimes his height caused people to overlook him. He returned a few greetings from old acquaintances, introduced his daughter, and all in all did not let anything slow him down until he had a drink in his hand. Brigitte sipped at her own flute of sparkling wine, smiling whenever introduced as ‘my youngest daughter’ by her father. In the lulls between introductions and short conversations, Torbjorn would tell Brigitte a bit about each person, where he remembered them from--if he did--and so forth.

Things had tapered off a little when a tall, willowy black man with hair like a dandelion in full fluff around his head seemed to sail through the crowd towards the pair of them, grinning and gesturing expansively. “Ah, Torbjorn, my old friend! Still trying to square circles, are you?”

Her father brightened, returning the man’s handshake heartily. “Ha! Well, you know _someone_ has got to actually do the work instead of just pushing numbers around.”

With a laugh at this, the man turned to Brigitte. “And you must be the youngest Miss Lindholm.” He held his hand out to her, and she returned the handshake.

“Brigitte, this character here is my old friend, Professor Uchenna. We’ve known each other for ages.” Torbjorn crossed his arms. “Even though my friend here insists on sticking to just maths.”

If anything, the professor looked even more amused. “We can’t all swing wrenches around, alas.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “You know, I was just thinking about you the other day.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, the Foundation’s Genius Grant this year went to a young girl from Numbani. She has a great interest in robotics and is an admirer of Overwatch.” Uchenna pulled a small holocube from his pocket and brought up the picture of the girl, with the short article about the grant that Brigitte remembered seeing. “Then again, who of that age isn’t? Efi Oladele.”

Brigitte grinned, taking a closer look at the proffered image. “That’s wonderful! Any idea what she’s doing with the grant?”

“Building something wonderful, I am sure.”

Her father’s conversation with Uchenna was comfortable, and a lot less cagey than any of the ones that she’d heard him have so far tonight. There wasn’t any question that what they were all doing at Gibraltar was very much outside the law, fair or not. Being seen here wouldn’t do any good if it brought them the wrong kind of attention. But it seemed that her father trusted this man, was being a little more candid with him.

Brigitte figured she’d give him a little space to talk with an old friend, as the conversation turned reminiscent. “I’m going to wander a bit, Pappa.”

“Alright.” He turned his attention back to the thread of the conversation and she left them chatting. The professor gave her a warm smile that she returned as she wandered off. 

She was just wondering if she could manage one of those canapes without getting it all over her dress, when someone got her attention. “Excuse me.” The voice was feminine, tentative. “Are you by any chance Brigitte Lindholm?”

Brigitte blinked, turning, a little surprised to be recognized so readily without her distinctive-looking father by her side. She hadn’t made nearly as much of a name for herself as he had, not just yet. “Yes, yes that’s me. Hey.”

The young woman looked about Brigitte’s own age, sleek black hair pulled away from her roundish face, a sleek-lined black dress on her slim figure. She just looked sleek, an effect Brigitte appreciated. “Jie Yang, I’m writing about tonight’s event for my journal.”

It took a moment for Brigitte to parse this as a scientific journal, most likely. Meaning the woman was a journalist. Well. She supposed she _had_ been the one who had pointed out the need to be seen as well. A mention in the notes-and-noticed of some science journal would be the perfect place to start. “Is that so?”

“Yes, and I was very much hoping to speak with you.”

Brigitte was even more surprised. “With me?”

“Of course. You see, I’ve heard many interesting things lately, but our journal is not in the habit of publishing rumors.”

This confused Brigitte a little. Yes, people were aware that something was going on over at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and they were Overwatch affiliated, most likely, but that was getting to be something of an open secret, if an unacknowledged one. Why would a science journal be interested in that sort of thing? “A good habit, yes…”

“So I was wondering, Miss Lindholm, if you have any comment regarding the Bastion unit that your father reportedly took in?”

The question caught her off-balance, though Brigitte reflected ruefully that the champagne probably wasn’t helping much with that either. “I had heard something about a Bastion unit too, but,” what was the answer they’d decided on again? _Ah yes_. “Pappa said he found one up north, made sure it wouldn’t be bothering a local town.”

Of course, there had been far more to it than that, but people still blamed her father for a lot of terrible things that, in Brigitte’s mind, he’d had no control over. Occasionally, people made comments where she could hear, not realizing or not caring _whose_ daughter she was.

The reporter did not seem satisfied with this evasion instead of an answer, so tried a different tactic. “So it wouldn’t have anything to do with reports people have been seeing about activity at several old Overwatch bases in recent months, hm?”

Brigitte tried not to show how uncomfortable she was at this questioning. The sleek look the woman cultivated had gone from appealing to faintly unnerving. “I- I wouldn’t know. Overwatch was shut down, you know. All of it.”

“Hm.” The woman’s eyes seemed to shift focus for a moment, then focus back on Brigitte. Probably comms or an earpiece of some sort, Brigitte realized. And the stylish black earrings that went so well with the dress? She’d bet a whole batch of semla one of them was a miniaturized camera.

Jie Yang pressed this line of questioning, seemingly sensing some hesitation in Brigitte’s answer. “Of course, beyond any sort of Overwatch-related activity being completely illegal there is also the matter of certain dangerous fugitives there have been rumors of. Know anything about them?”

Brigitte stared at the woman, surprised by this last question. “Dangerous fugitives?” It was genuine confusion, the other questions having been easy to evade since she had prepared for them.

The reporter seized on her confusion, eager eyes darting to the side as something was said over the earpiece. “Indeed, such as… ah, outlaw Jesse McCree? Wanted for murder, theft, and so on.”

“What?” Brigitte realized immediately that she’d reacted, that she’d given something away, even if the reporter didn’t know what, exactly. “I- I don’t know anything about that. I’ve,” she went back to the lie, the one that worked so well because it was technically true, after all. “I’ve been traveling. With my godfather. Around Europe.”

If she couldn’t have one thing, it seemed the woman would go for another. “Your godfather; that would be Reinhardt Wilhelm? Former Crusader and member of Overwatch?”

At least her righteous anger lent credence to her answer this time. “An organization that _pushed him out_ , back in the day. But Overwatch is gone now,” she said firmly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Is it really? There have been reports of activity at old Overwatch bases, witness accounts from around the world--”

She stopped as Brigitte shook her head so vehemently one of the bobby pins she’d had to keep her hair in its style fell out. “I don’t know anything about any of that.”

Disappointed, Jie Yang looked at her, lips pursed. “I’m sure. Traveling, was it?”

“Right.”

Just when it looked like the reporter was about to launch into another line of questioning, her focus was stolen by someone coming up behind Brigitte. Brigitte turned, relief flooding her as she realized it was Professor Uchenna again.

“Ah, there you are Miss Lindholm. Are you being inconvenienced by this young lady?”

The reporter’s smile was instant and fake. “She was just telling me about her recent travels, but I really must be going.” With that, she gave the both of them a nod and went off in search of another interviewee.

Brigitte sagged a little, blowing out a breath of relief. “ _Thank_ you.”

Uchenna patted her shoulder reassuringly. “It looked like you could use a little help.” The professor flagged down one of the circulating waiters and presented Brigitte with a glass of the champagne. “I think this may help as well, if you would like.”

She took it gratefully, sipping at it slowly. “I’ve been in some dangerous situations before, but that was…” She shook her head, having another sip of the sparkling wine.

“Well, you handled it better than your father used to, I will say that.” Professor Uchenna’s eyes sparkled with good humor.

“I believe that.” Her father was many things, but adept at dealing with people like that was never going to be one of them.

He led her across the hall as they talked, back towards where her father was waiting. Torbjorn, it seemed, never one for this sort of party, was very much ready to go.

Brigitte stooped to peck him on the cheek, which served double for her to check just how much he’d had to drink tonight. Not too much, it appeared. He’d be alright.

He brushed her off, patting her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be fine, _gullebit_ , we’ll give the reporters a wave as we go by and be home in no time,” he assured her.

Truthfully, she was relieved. Brigitte was young, yes, but this wasn’t her sort of party. “Sounds perfect.” She smiled gratefully at Uchenna, who, it seemed, was not leaving just yet. “It was wonderful to meet you, Professor.”

He beamed back at her, a firm, warm handclasp accompanying it. “And you as well. Go well, my friends.”

The small crowd of reporters barely even registered as they left the hall, and soon father and daughter were on their way back.

\--

“It is unusual for you to stay in one place for so long these days, isn’t it?”

McCree indicated the fairness of this observation with a tip of the bottle. “It hasn’t been so bad, being here. Found some things I kind like about this place,” he mused.

“Is one of those things Miss Lindholm?” Genji asked, voice mild, as if he was mentioning the nice mediterranean weather.

Genji had always been hard to read, what with the metal and the scarring and everything, but McCree wondering if he was losing his touch. It was a bit of an odd thing to start with, was all. But McCree shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. She’s-” He paused, eyeing Genji, trying to decide how to sum it up. “She’s nice.”

He granted that with a small lift of his drink, an almost-salute. “She is, at that.” A pause, then, “I can’t help but wonder though,” Genji mused, tone deceptively idle. “What your plans are for the future.”

A bit of an odd question, coming from his old friend, but he supposed Genji had changed in more ways than one since their Blackwatch days. As had he. McCree shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. Might stay here a spell, may get itchy feet and go for a wander. Depends.”

“Does Brigitte know that?”

Another shrug. “I suppose so. She’s smart.”

A long, hard stare from Genji. McCree felt like he was missing some vital piece of the puzzle this conversation was swift turning into. “You do not think she would be hurt, if you were to suddenly disappear?”

“I hadn’t, uh, really thought about it.”

The ironic look Genji returned clearly said that wasn’t surprising at all. He chose his next question with care. McCree couldn’t help but feel like this had turned into some kind of interrogation, rather than drinks with a friend. “What is it that you want, McCree?”

McCree stared at his friend across the table in disbelief, the pieces finally falling into place on what Genji was driving at with his questions. Genji made the long drink he took look mostly nonchalant. “Are you-” McCree paused, setting down his beer and pinching the bridge of his nose. “ _Christ_ , Genji, are you asking what my intentions are for her?”

“I wouldn't put it in such terms, exactly.”

A cagey non-answer. Jesse snorted in response. Genji raised his eyebrows and just looked at him levelly.

“Why is it you're worried about that and not whether _she_ could hurt me, huh?” It was a rhetorical question, Jesse stalling for time to think, but to his surprise Genji answered it anyway.

“Oh, we both know she could break you in half and throw away the pieces, if she wanted to. But she doesn't want to.” Jesse stared back at Genji at this assertion that the other man had flung out as if it was obvious fact. He went on. “I don't think that you want to hurt her either, but I don't know what you want. I think you do not know that much yourself, sometimes.”

Jesse drained the drink. “Damn but you got all philosophical hanging out with that mechanical preacher.”

The look Genji gave him said that, loathe as he was to let that comment go, he would forgo giving McCree shit right back to focus on the topic they'd been on. McCree switched to a different tactic, getting up to head to the bar. Genji was still there, looking more and more ironic, when McCree returned with two drinks, his own a whiskey. Pointedly, he slid the beer over to Genji, who hadn’t yet finished his first.

McCree took a large sip of his whiskey, and shook his head. “I thought you were supposed to be the little brother, where’s all this big brother-type stuff coming from all of a sudden?”

This did win a laugh from his friend, at least. “I suppose that is what you could call it.” Genji nursed his beer, still his first one, thinking about this counterpoint, since it was still on topic. “Angela treats Brigitte like she is her own family, it seems. Reinhardt as well. And she has become my friend in her own right,” he added, taking another long drink, this one finally finishing it. “Plus she is a good sparring partner.”

He granted that with a nod of his head, a slight raise of his glass, and a sip in memory of long-healed aches. Genji let the silence sit a moment longer before starting in on the second beer McCree had procured. “So?”

McCree watched his whiskey glass, the way the amber liquid slid around inside, thinking of warm eyes and red hair. “What I want…” The whiskey was returning no answers, especially all un-drunk.

The two men drank in silence for another while longer, Genji giving McCree time to think it over--and drink more of his whiskey. He wouldn’t let him get away with bullshit though, as much as McCree wished. “I mean, I know I like her. Y’know. _Like_ her,” He finally began, slowly, not examining his words too closely lest they shy away from him like a spooked horse. He felt like the awkward teenager he hadn’t been for decades. “I want her. I want to be around her. I think,” he paused, swigging down the rest of his drink, honesty in a glass. “I guess I’d like her to be happy. And I’d like if I was a part of that for now anyway.”

He looked up from his empty tumbler at the thunk of Genji’s bottle next to it, then started in surprise as Genji reached across the narrow table to clap a hand on his shoulder. “That sounds pretty good to me.” He was smiling.


	9. Turn Your Head Toward the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we have fluff, and Torbjorn lives down to the worst dad stereotypes.

This was usually the part where she left, whenever they were in Jesse’s room, he’d gotten that by now. This, whatever it was, had been going on a few weeks and that was just how it went. She’d come out of the bathroom, grab her clothes to make herself presentable for at least a short walk down the hallway, and be gone leaving nothing but a kiss. It had been a few weeks now, since they had started in on whatever this was.

This time was the same, her disappearing into the little bathroom, then returning a few moments later. She was always a sight to see, like that, all bare, pale skin and freckles. A very good one.

“Y’know,” he said idly this time as she emerged, fixing her hair up. “You don’t gotta run off right away.”

Brigitte stopped and blinked, seeming a little shy, though not about her state of undress. “You mean... stay?”

Jesse slid out of bed and made a grand gesture as if presenting it for her use. “If you’d like.” Without waiting for her answer, he made his way around her for his turn at the bathroom--and to give her a chance to make a decision without being watched. He wasn’t sure where the impulse to ask had come from, or why he’d gone and said it out loud. Things were working for them, after all, no reason for it to change other than an idle thought. He had no idea what she’d do.

Jesse wasn’t sure what to name the feeling he got he came out and saw her there in the bed, scrolling through something on her handheld, wearing one of his flannel shirts, but it was a nice one. Without comment, Jesse sat on the other side of the bed. He went to take off his prosthetic, part of his usual nighttime routine, and paused. He hadn’t lost the limb all that many years ago, and every time he’d been with someone since he hadn’t stuck around long enough for it to become a problem. It was enough to cause him to hesitate in front of her.

Being Brigitte, she noticed, of course. She looked up from her handheld, a tentative smile on her face. “Need a hand?”

He shot her a look that was unamused, but not offended at her bad joke. “I think I got it.” With a few practiced movements, he disconnected the prosthetic, laying it carefully on the table there on that side of the bed. Absently, he massaged the stump with his good hand, the weird pins-and-needles feeling he often got when he disconnected it at first subsiding after a moment. Remembering she was still watching, he gave her a sideways smile. “Sorry.”

Brigitte shook her head, setting aside her handheld. “Not at all. You can’t rest with it on, after all.”

He tilted his head in mixed agreement. “Well, I mean I _can_ , but, y’know.” Probably she knew better than some, now that he thought about it.

“I do, sort of. Pappa gets cramps when he accidentally naps with his hand on, sometimes. And never _mind_ the claw.” She made a face.

He gave a low laugh, more acknowledgement than amusement, and instead used his right hand to pull her in for a thorough kiss. She gave him a sleepy, contented smile when he pulled back to look at her. He grinned back. “I’d reckoned you’d look good in my shirts.”

“I look good in anything,” she informed him smugly, snuggling down into his bed. 

He settled in next to her, draping his arm over her. “And nothing at all.”

She laughed in his embrace.

\--

Torbjorn Lindholm, despite what some people thought, had an eye for detail. It was true, percussive maintenance was both an engineering technique and something of a life philosophy for him. But was knowing where and what to whack with a hammer and exactly how hard that separated the engineers from the demolitions experts. People weren’t machines, of course, though some Omnics certainly argued that machines could be people, but he still noticed details. Sometimes. 

And he had noticed that something was going on with Brigitte.

He wasn’t entirely sure what, no, that was true. At first he had thought it was something to do with being in the same place as her father after having gotten a taste of independence wandering around with Reinhardt. But she had such free rein here on the old Watchpoint, and he tried his best to not bother her too much. Besides, he was pretty sure she would have said something to get him to back off if she thought he was smothering. She used to at home after all.

It wasn’t even that there was something _wrong_ as such. She seemed happy, and had been doing well since that little scare on that mission a while back, Angie had reassured him of that. But still, it just felt like there was _something_. 

It pained him a little to admit that he was asking Reinhardt about it. He had sent Brigitte off with his old friend to keep him out of trouble with his blessings, even if he hadn’t been exactly thrilled about it. Reinhardt had spent more time with Brigitte in the past few years than Torbjorn had, and it still gave him a little pang to realize that. He was her father, after all. 

But that didn’t make it less true. Or mean that Torbjorn wanted Reinhardt’s insight any less, when it came to this. 

Or that he knew how to ask such a thing, exactly. 

“What are you asking me? To spy on your daughter?” Reinhardt had made it clear he wasn’t going to do that sort of thing, when he had left with her in tow. Make sure Brigitte was ok and make sure she sent updates home, yes, of course. Pry too far? Never.

“No, no no no,” Torbjorn reassured his friend, setting aside the welding torch he’d been working with and flipping up his mask. “Nothing of the sort! Just, you know…” He trailed off, not knowing exactly what he wanted. “If there’s anything going on with her that you know about, any, I don’t know, new friends she’s made, new hobbies she’s taken up. Haven’t seen her in a while, thought you might know something.”

“Ah.” Reinhardt had settled onto the stool at one of the workbenches, dwarfing it. If Torbjorn himself hadn’t reinforced it he might be worried for its structural integrity. “I see. There was not much time for such things out on the road,” he mused. “But since we have arrived here, she has had a wonderful time, I think. She and the Shimada boy have hit it off quite nicely, I know McCree taught her to shoot.” He paused, then added, “I wonder if she’s the one who keeps replacing all my Hasselhoff with that new-fangled stuff they call music these days.”

Torbjorn snorted a laugh. “Good for her, if that’s so.”

“Bah, no appreciation for the classics!” Reinhardt waved a hand dismissively at Torbjorn’s deprecation. 

“I have plenty of appreciation for the real classics!” Torbjorn insisted, the old argument familiar as an old work glove.

Reinhardt just shook his head, then returned to the topic nominally under discussion. “She is making new friends here, spending time with old ones…” Reinhardt smiled at his friend. “She is young and I think she is happy here.”

Torbjorn picked the welding torch back up. “Well. I suppose that is all a father can ask for. But just… let me know, if that changes, eh?”

“Of course, my friend.”

\--

Winston sighed, scrolling through the news feed that seemed endless. Mostly because it was. Athena occasionally tutted at him for enabling that setting, but she hadn’t changed it back yet, so there was that at least. 

He had issued the recall after long thought and a memory of the world the way it could be. As it so often did, reality turned out to be a little more complicated than that. They were doing a lot of good in the world, that much was true. But the longer they were in action the more it seemed like trouble not only followed them, but was, in some cases, caused by them, at least partly. 

Part of that was who was in the new group anyway. When he had issued the recall he had done it knowing that some of the things people had been up to in the years since they were disbanded were less than legal. Winston had justified it to himself in that, of course, any Overwatch activity was completely illegal, so they were all just working outside of the law together. It was fine.

Until the point when it wasn’t. They’d collected new skills and new scars, but some of them had collected trouble too. Technically London police still wanted to speak with Lena about the Mondatta assassination. Lucio was being very cagey about where he’d gotten his tech, and some of the news stories he’d come across suggested some things Winston would rather not dig into. Jesse McCree had somehow managed to get a sixty million dollar bounty dropped on his head in the intervening years. It seemed like there was someone out there who really, _really_ hated him. Even Genji, who had mellowed out considerably from when Winston had known him before (and was much more enjoyable company now, in all honesty) had managed to get into some kind of trouble with his family--specifically his brother. Winston didn’t know the details beyond that, nor did he want to.

They had enough trouble, all of them. Winston just hoped he had done the right thing when he issued the recall, and hadn’t just created more trouble in the world.

“Winston,” Athena’s voice interrupted his musings, somehow always seeming to know when he was in this sort of thought spiral. “May I remind you that it has been six hours, thirty-three minutes and forty-seven seconds since your last proper meal?” 

Winston huffed a laugh, switching off the screen of his desktop system. “Alright, alright, there’s no need to nag,” he joked good-naturedly with the AI.

“If you say so.”

\--

Torbjorn had been noticing things, for the past week. Little details, since his conversation with Reinhardt. But some details were hard to miss, and told their own story very, very clearly. Like the way Brigitte smiled at McCree after their hands brushed, passing in the hall, or the way he grinned when she made some small comment to him that was too soft for anyone else to hear. 

And then sometimes the universe smacked you in the face with things. Like seeing his daughter emerge from McCree’s room with her hair down, in yesterday’s clothes, with a satisfied smile on her face. 

Any illusions he might have had about a room mix-up, or maybe she was in there for literally any other reason were put to rest by the low voice Torbjorn couldn’t make out. Brigitte laughed, leaned in for another kiss, and then she was making her way down the hall in the other direction, with no indication that she’d seen her father standing there outside his own door. 

Torbjorn stood there a few moments longer, processing what he’d seen and deciding what to do next, when Jesse McCree emerged from his own room. He, on the other hand, noticed Torbjorn right away, touching fingers to his hat. “Morning, sir.”

“Ha.” Torbjorn vented, turning on his heel and walking away from McCree, ignorant of the bewildered look on the cowboy’s face. Maybe he’d go find his favorite hammer again, that would certainly do.

\--

“Ach, would you believe it!” Torbjorn bounced his palm lightly off his forehead. “I left my good hammer on my workbench in my room! Brigitte, would you be a good girl and go fetch that for your Pappa?”

McCree had come to the workshop to try and grab Brigitte for a bite to eat, maybe some coffee, if she wasn’t too busy. She had smiled, and waved him in. He only been there a few moments, leaning against her worktable, watching her work on some arcane piece of metal he didn’t know the purpose of.

Brigitte eyed her father with wry humor. “Getting forgetful in your old age?” She teased, stripping off her work gloves and tossing them onto the bench next to where McCree stood.

“Still young enough to teach _you_ a thing or too, missy.” 

She just laughed as she left the workshop. McCree made to follow her out.

“Ah, no, I think you should stay, McCree.” Torbjorn said, gesturing with his wrench to the work stool Brigitte had just vacated. 

McCree moved cautiously and perched on the proffered seat, uncertain what this could be about. He had suspicions--well, fears really--but one of the first things you learned about interrogation was not to give any information away for free, especially in the first waiting-out part.

 _An interrogation? Where’d I get that idea?_ Torbjorn was examining a tray of rivets, yes, but still holding that wrench. _And if it is, what am I guilty of?_

“So, Jesse. You’re enjoying Gibraltar, are you?” 

An interesting start to the conversation, though it closely paralleled where Genji had started his… “Uh, yes sir. It’s a, a nice little rock.” Where had the sir come from? Well, better safe than sorry, he supposed.

“Good, good.” Torbjorn put the wrench down, to McCree’s relief, short-lived though it was. “Out of curiosity, exactly how old are you?” 

McCree blinked at this latest turn in the conversation, feeling like the conversation was a mechanical bull he was just trying not to fall off of. “Uh, thirty-seven just this year, sir.” 

“I see.” He had abandoned the first wrench for, McCree saw to his dismay, a much bigger wrench around the side of the tool chest. "And what is it you think you’re doing with my daughter?”

The two problems here that Jesse had never thought about were these: the fact that he was sharing a very small Watchpoint with just the sort of father he’d prefer to stay far, far away from, mostly because they would prefer he stay far, far away from their daughters; and the fact that he didn’t know exactly _what_ to call what he and Brigitte were doing. “I’m, uh. Not sure what you mean, sir.” It wasn’t _entirely_ a lie anyway…

“Hmph,” Torbjorn grumped, looking McCree up and down. It was intimidating, yes, but it would take more than that to break Jesse McCree. “‘Not sure’, ha.” He seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this tactic, much to his frustration. “Whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

McCree frowned, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. “Well, sir, I can’t do anything about that. Brigitte makes her own decisions,” he pointed out. He was glad that he was one of them, true, but.

More grumbling from Torbjorn that Jesse rather thought was in Swedish. Maybe Torbjorn knew some kind of old Viking curses. Did Vikings have curses? Torbjorn switched tactics again. “Now I know you’re a wanted man, McCree, I’ve heard that much. What right do you have to drag an innocent girl into the messes you've made?”

McCree would argue the innocent part, but maybe not so much to her father. “I ain’t dragging her anywhere, she’s the one at the reins of this thing.” It was true too, though Torbjorn’s point about bounties gave Jesse a pang of worry. Especially since O’Deorain had dropped that tidbit of intel on him as she was leaving. 

Torbjorn glared at him, clearly not appreciating McCree’s evasive answers. Brigitte would be back soon, though, he knew that much. “Reins or not, if you hurt her…” He trailed off, hefting the wrench to reinforce the implicit threat. McCree didn’t respond. Torbjorn sighed.

“Well. Let’s just say this.” Torbjorn continued in a different tone, almost sounding nonchalant about it now, a change from his grumbling, but weirdly even more threatening in its way. “I don’t like it when people hurt the things I’ve made.” The wrench in the little man’s hands was looking bigger and heavier by the word. “Now, granted, they can usually take care of themselves, but I look out for them too.” They were definitely not just talking about turrets, McCree was very sure. What he wasn’t sure about was how to get out of this conversation relatively intact. 

“Uhm. Yessir, that. That sounds just about right.” He’d always known Torbjorn had the capability to be terrifying, had seen it in action several time whether in person or recorded. It just had never been directed at _him_ before.

Torbjorn slung the large wrench against his shoulder, then reached out to give Jesse a hearty pat on the arm. Jesse managed not to flinch away--mostly. “Good, good, then I think we have an understanding, yes?”

Jesse hoped the nodding came across as fervent, not frantic. Hoped being the key word. “Yessir I think we do.”

The shoulder pat turned into a slight push in the direction of the door. “Well then, you get along, I’ve got work to do.”

Jesse took the hint--and his exit.


	10. If You Are a Queen Then, Honey, I Am a Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which several discussions on a theme are had, and plots continue apace.

“I had a talk with your daddy today,” Jesse said idly, slinging his belt with its holster and draping it over the headboard on what had sort of become ‘his side’ of the bed. He liked having it nearby, even when he slept. Never knew when you might need to be up and ready to go at a moment’s notice, after all. 

Brigitte un-did her ponytail, shook her hair out and looked at him. “Oh? What about?”

“You, mostly,” he admitted. 

She stopped, lowering her arms from where she’d been just about to pull her shirt off. “What?”

He shrugged, placing his hat on the corner of the headboard, avoiding her sudden stare. “Yeah, mostly.”

Brigitte narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “What kind of talk, Jesse?”

Her tone, along with the crossed arms and the drawn-down eyebrows, indicated that he had stepped into dangerous territory, though for whom he wasn’t quite sure. He came over to her, placing hands on her hips and drawing her close. “No big thing, just the usual sort of dad stuff. I used to get it all the time, back in the day. Not so much now, but…”

When he tried to lean in for a kiss, she placed a hand on his chest to pause for a moment. “‘Dad stuff’?”

He had started this conversation and it appeared that he would not be getting out of it so easily. “Y’know, old hat. Though once in awhile I got it from somebody’s Mamma instead. Or Auntie. The whole ‘hurt my daughter and I’ll break your arms off and feed ‘em to you’ or ‘touch her and the alligators’ll be eating well tonight’ or ‘you make any assaults on her virtue and-’” He waved a hand, his tone airy. It wasn’t that big a deal, really.

She took a moment to process these colorful idioms. “You’re saying he _threatened_ you?”

Jesse laughed, like it was a joke. “Sure did, with a wrench.”

“ _What_?!” She broke away from him, staring in astonishment and not a little outrage.

 _Note to self_ , Jesse thought, _this is what she looks like when she’s real mad_. “It’s nothing. He- he meant well by it. He’s your dad, he just wants to protect you. I understand that much.” 

Brigitte was pacing the small space of his quarters, muttering angrily. Jesse definitely caught the phrases ‘patriarchal bullshit’, ‘medieval nonsense’ and something about creative uses for drafting pencils before she had let off enough steam to wind down. Blowing out a heavy sigh, she ran a hand through her hair, then glanced at Jesse, suddenly looking a bit sheepish. “Sorry.”

Jesse chuckled, pulling her close again to make it clear he wasn’t laughing at her. “Nah, I hear ya, pumpkin. But I haven’t got anything to worry about. Not from him, at least.” Brigitte pulled away to eye him curiously. “I know right well you can take care of yourself, and I’m not planning on hurting you.”

She studied him silently for a moment, then grinned, that edge of humor back in it again, which Jesse was glad to see. “But what about, ah, ‘assaults on my virtue’?” She asked.

Jesse grinned back, slipping a hand down lower. “Oh, now, I’m planning on plenty of those.”

She laughed. The rest of the night was spent doing just that.

\--

McCree woke with a start, his hand going to the air where his left hand should be, closing over nothing that still somehow felt like it had shooting pains through it. Beside him, Brigitte stirred, making a sleepy mumble that might have been his name or something like it. “Nothing, nothing, go back to sleep.” 

Her answering murmur had a tone of doubt, but she was soon out cold again. Brigitte tended to sleep deeply, and be hard to wake. Something about small vans and Reinhardt’s snoring she had said.

Jesse was not so lucky. The pain was distracting, and focusing on the exercises-- _breathe in, and out, visualize the phantom limb, picture it unclenching, unfolding, breathe in_ \--was enough to keep the images from the nightmare that had accompanied his rude awakening at bay. For a little while anyway. 

The dream hadn’t even been related to the job where he lost his arm, as far as he could remember. Things in common, the bullets and the darkness and the terrifying sense of pursuit and things spiraling out of control, and dark ghosts and--

_Breathe out. In again._

It took a little while for him to recover, but McCree was relieved to see Brigitte had apparently slept through it, curled up at his side like a contented cat. His breathing slowed, steadied, the cramp fading away back into phantom nothings and old aches. 

McCree was used to nightmares. They had been long friends, he and them, with many nights spent together. There were some things that only visited in dreams, after all. But he was glad that, though he had woken Brigitte initially, she hadn’t been properly roused, had been able to get right back to sleep. It helped, somehow, seeing her there, safe and sound and--

 _Oh. So that’s a new wrinkle_. Yes, she’d been there, hadn’t she? He couldn’t remember in what capacity, the nightmare slipping away like dark water, the way all dreams did, but she’d been there. And if it had woken him it was not a nice dream, that much he knew. 

But she was here now. He eased himself back down next to her. She snuffled amiably in her sleep, and rolled into him. McCree was out again soon after.

\--

Brigitte knew that she was easy to read, she always had been. She had gotten better, over the years, at hiding it whenever she was unhappy, but her temper would always get the better of her.

One of the nice things about sparring every day with Reinhardt was that it was a pretty good outlet for her anger, when she was upset about something. In fact, Reinhardt had often told her to channel her feelings into her fighting, taking it and using it and honing it, not just letting it loose everywhere. This technique had worked much better for her than Genji’s philosophy regarding anger, which seemed mostly to be ‘just let it go’. She didn’t get angry easily, but when she did the very last thing she wanted was to let it go. 

She was definitely working some feelings out today, she thought to herself as she slammed her padded mace into the practice shield on Reinhardt’s arm again.

“Good, good power behind that one!” He praised her, shoving her back with the shield. “Again!”

“Ha!” Another slam, feeling like she’d gotten even more behind that one than the previous.

To her surprise, instead of bouncing her back for another run, this time Reinhardt let her push his shield and arm back, and she went stumbling past, overbalanced. “Huh?” Reinhardt took advantage of her moment of inattention and bopped her on the back of the head with the padded shield as she passed. Brigitte whirled around, seething, but he had lowered the shield. “What?”

The look her godfather gave her, that she should absolutely know why he had stopped the sparring session, would have made her blush with embarrassment if she wasn’t already flushed from exercise. “You are not fighting as well as I know you can.”

Brigitte huffed, and would have crossed her arms if it hadn’t meant putting down her weapon. “It’s _fine_ , it’s nothing.”

“Clearly if you are distracted it’s not nothing,” he pointed out with a cutting look, beginning to undo the straps on the practice shield. 

Obviously he wasn’t letting this go. Brigitte resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s just my father, it’s nothing to _worry_ about, is what I meant.”

Now there was a hint of amusement in the old man’s face. He and her father were good and true friends, sure, but that also meant they knew each other’s shortcomings all too well sometimes. “Ohhh? And what has Torbjorn done now?”

Brigitte paused, realizing suddenly that she hadn’t actually _told_ Reinhardt about the whole thing with Jesse yet. It was still new and so very different from any of the short-lived dalliances that had gone on (or mostly not gone on, since there just wasn’t time for them) when they’d been traveling about. That, and she wasn’t entirely sure how Reinhardt would react to it anyway. “Uh. So, so Jesse and I, you know, McCree?” He gestured for her to go on. “We’re sort of… dating, I guess you could call it.”

Reinhardt’s face went through a series of emotions as he processed this news, and Brigitte was pretty sure she hadn’t caught all of them. “Is that so? Ha! Good for you!”

Encouraged, Brigitte continued. “Apparently Pappa doesn’t quite agree with you on that. He went all medieval father and threatened Jesse with a wrench.”

Reinhardt’s laugh was short, but carrying. “Did he now?”

“Yes, and I’m a little angry at him for it,” Brigitte replied, a little primly.

“Ah, fair enough.”’ He granted that point with a gesture, then continued to remove the practice gear. Brigitte took this as a sign that their sparring session for the day was finished, and began doing so herself. Reinhardt paused for a moment, considering. “Would you, ah, like me to talk to him?”

Brigitte blinked up at him. “Who, Jesse?”

“No, though,” another considering look, like it wasn’t a bad idea. “I meant your father. See if I can get him to see sense all the way down there.” 

The height jokes were old hat, and they still did make Brigitte laugh, at least a little. But she shook her head. “No, I think I should. Though if he doesn’t listen I know I can call on you.”

He smiled back at her. “Always.”

They spent a few moments quietly putting away gear before Brigitte asked, almost timidly. “So you- you’re ok with… this? With Jesse, I mean?”

Reinhardt considered this seriously, respecting her question by giving the full weight of his regard. “I have always liked the McCree boy, and I think he has become a better person, from what I have seen of him. If you like him, then I cannot disapprove.”

Brigitte’s smile was pleased and genuine. “Thanks, Reinhardt.”

“Just,” his smile made it clear that it was halfway to a joke. “Try not to break the poor boy’s heart, if you decide you’re done with him, eh? Don’t want to add to all those you left across Europe!”

“Reinhardt! Don’t be ridiculous!” She laughed it off.

“Me? Ridiculous?” He protested, hamming it up. “Never!”

“Uh-huh.” Laughing together, they left the practice area.

\--

When Brigitte had been a little girl, and had done something that she knew she would get in trouble for, she would do her very best to avoid both of her parents. She wasn’t a deceitful child, and, when confronted with her wrongdoing, would stubbornly and steadfastly own up to it completely. But they’d have to find her first. 

Torbjorn felt, for some reason, that the positions were now reversed, oddly enough. He knew, as soon as McCree had left--practically fled--the room, that Brigitte would be unhappy with him. And a part of him even knew that that would be fair. But he’d seen the opportunity and he’d taken it. And if his daughter wanted to be mad at him that was all well and good.

But that didn’t mean he had to invite it. It wasn’t that he was avoiding her. He just… happened to be in not-the-same-place that she was. Rather a lot, in the last few days.

It couldn’t last, of course. There was only the one really well-equipped workshop on the base and only 24 or so hours in the day, so it was really inevitable that she would be waiting for him there when he arrived, bright and early in the morning, to pick up a few things. He hadn’t even noticed her there when he’d walked in, intending to get tools and get out. 

“So,” Brigitte said, emerging from the shadows over by the outside door. “I hear you like giving lectures to people now.”

Torbjorn froze briefly, turning to her slowly. “Wha-hey, sweetling, didn’t see you there.”

Brigitte gave him a look, clearly not buying it and unamused. He was determined though, it seemed, to try and play it like he didn’t know why she would be there, or why she was set on talking to him. “Pappa…” She said, with a warning tone.

He sighed, slumping down a little, particularly impressive at his short height. “Yes, yes, yes, you’re unhappy with me, aren’t you?” Her posture, leaning against a workbench, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in question, made that abundantly clear. Though that did beg the question… “How did you even hear about…?”

“Jesse told me.”

Torbjorn harrumphed at this revelation, and probably a little bit at the fact of first-name basis. Brigitte rolled her eyes at his grumpiness, since that, and him, were the whole reason she was here in the first place. 

They sat in silence for a good long moment, Brigitte unmoving, Torbjorn stoic. It was Torbjorn who broke first, sighing a long sigh and settling himself down on a workstool. Brigitte approached, arms still crossed, face still stony. “That was not ok, you know. Threatening him like that.”

Torbjorn gave a very small laugh, more at himself than anything. “Shouldn’t have used the wrench, huh?”

As a joke to diffuse the situation, it didn’t work very well. “ _Pappa_.”

Torbjorn held up a hand, indicating that she wait just a moment. She was reaching the end of her patience with him, but was willing to give him time to muster his thoughts. “It’s just, you’re my baby girl. I know, I know,” he held up both hands to stem her protests before they began in earnest. “You’re all grown up and your own woman, and don’t I know it. And I trust you to take care of yourself, and that you’re being safe. But if you get hurt, I can’t patch your heart up with a hammer.”

Brigitte had been prepared to keep being angry with him, to berate him and let him know how wrong he was to threaten one of her beaus like that, but it seemed like he already knew. She deflated just a bit, sighing heavily before wrapping her arms around him.”Oh Pappa.”

He patted her heavily, then let go, holding her at arm’s length. “I’m sorry, _gullebit_.”

“I know. It’s ok. Just,” She smiled, shaking her head. “Don’t ever do that again. Or I’ll have to tell Mamma.” It was an effective warning, given Ingrid’s views on women, masculinity, and her husband’s oh-so-rare descent into archaic Dad-behavior. 

“Alright, alright, I’m warned off.” He let her go, then pushed himself to stand, patting the toolbox next to him. “You just say the word though, I’ve got your back, no matter what.”

“I know, Pappa. I love you too. Though,” She paused, hands on her hips. “I think you probably owe Jesse an apology too.” 

The grumble she got in reply was not encouraging, but he waved her glare off. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll buy him a drink.” 

Brigitte laughed because, yes, her father _would_ consider that an apology, wouldn’t he? So that was a bit of alright, then. 

\--

McCree didn’t bother pushing the brim of his hat up to look as the heavy footsteps approached him at the bar. Reinhardt was distinctive no matter what. “Y’here to be all menacing at me too?”

The short, but genuinely amused, laugh was not the response he had been expecting from Reinhardt. “No, my friend, I am here for a drink.” There didn’t seem to be any sarcasm in his voice either.

Intrigued, Jesse pushed back his hat to look at Reinhardt, then slowly lowered his legs from the chair beside him where they had been. “That so?’

“Indeed.” Reinhardt settled into the chair McCree had freed up, signaling the bartender for his usual. He was a drink or two into his beer before he continued. “Besides. I have found that at my size, I do not need to be menacing, and that menacing is a very tiring way to be.”

McCree eyed the much larger man up and down. “That’s… a fair enough point I suppose.” 

A few more sips in silence. “But I am given to understand that you and my squire have…. A little something going on. Between sparring sessions, as it were.”

It was his light, almost joking tone to his voice, and the fact that he wasn’t trying to be threatening, that made McCree take an extra drink and consider what he was actually saying, instead of bolting out of sheer instinct. “That’s… about right, sir.”

“Ha!” Reinhardt waved away the honorific. “McCree, please! Nothing between us has changed!”

McCree gave an ‘if you say so’ tilt of his head. “So, you’re here for a drink?”

In reply, Reinhardt lifted the beer in a toast, then drained half of it. “And maybe,” he set the glass down. “If you want it, a little advice, from a person who has spent a fair bit of time with the person you are, ah, as they say, ‘making time’ with.”

That produced a short laugh from McCree. “Is that what they say?”

Reinhardt raised his eyebrows at the younger man over his pint, but didn’t fire back a joke. McCree pondered things for a moment silently. It was clear Reinhardt was waiting for him to start this conversation. “Well then. You’ve, uh, known Brigitte all her life, right?”

Reinhardt nodded, then raised a finger to add, proudly, “I was even the one to name her!”

McCree vaguely recalled that story, from back in the day. “And you’ve been wandering about with her for the last coupla whiles.” Another nod, so McCree continued, trying not to think too hard about how to word this question. If he thought too hard he’d never come up with anything and the opportunity would be--if not lost, since this was Reinhardt--at the very least delayed. “I guess one of the best ways to get to know someone better is to ask the people that know them.”

“That is what I have heard as well, yes.”

“So, uh.” McCree awkwardly gestured with his drink. “Tell me about her?”

The look that Reinhardt gave him was full of irony. “She took apart a microwave for the first time when she was three, but didn’t learn to put one back together until she was six. She hates the smell of currywurst in the van. She loves cats and misses her own back home. She-”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” McCree waved him to a stop. “That’s… not quite what I meant.”

Reinhardt had known full well, that look said. “Then I think you should ask what you mean to ask. Even if it takes a moment to find the words that are good enough.”

It was weirdly encouraging, and Jesse sat with it for a moment, doing exactly what Reinhardt had suggested. Good enough didn’t have to mean perfect, after all. “What… is she like, uh. When she’s at her happiest? Her, uh. When she’s,” he waved a hand vaguely. “At home, I guess I mean.” But no, that wasn’t it, was it? “Not like, with her family, but,” he tapped his chest with his free hand. “In here?”

The sudden strong pat from Reinhardt nearly made McCree choke on his drink. “Ha! Now I think that we are getting to it!”

McCree coughed. “Are we now?”

Reinhardt, in answer, nodded, drained the pint, and gestured to the bartender for another one. It was only after he had this next drink in his hand that he began to answer. You couldn’t exactly call any voice or tone coming out of Reinhardt ‘soft’, but there was a genuineness and a warmth to it that spoke of his great love for his goddaughter. “I have gotten to know a girl who has grown into a woman, over the last few years, who is brave, and true, and full of honor. She is bright as sunshine, and gives her affections away, but not her heart,” Reinhardt observed, contemplating his pint, then drinking half of this one too. 

“You think she might be afraid to?” McCree asked, immediately rethinking the words. Definitely not the right ones. Implying Brigitte was afraid of anything was ridiculous, and he had the notion she'd go off and try to prove such an idea complete nonsense--probably by going out and doing something foolhardy, reckless, and entirely his sort of thing. But she wasn't there to hear it, fortunately.

Instead, Reinhardt looked at him evenly for a long moment. Then, he smiled a little. “When I was called, I was not about to make her come with me. She was against the very idea of me returning here. She was _very_ adamant that a place that held people who so casually pushed me aside for their own convenience, in spite of all I had given and done, did not deserve a moment’s thought, let alone returning. But when duty calls, honor must answer.”

McCree furrowed his brows. He hoped Reinhardt was going somewhere with this, as it seemed on its face to have nothing to do with what he asked, but he trusted him, having another long drink and waiting. The Crusader continued.

“To borrow a phrase from her father--from one of the many times he’s complained about me going out to battle injustice in the world--it was my windmill to tilt at, not Brigitte’s. But what did she do? She took up a weapon and a shield, and she wields them. She crafted her own armor, and fights at my side. She would not do that if she did not wish to give her heart to it. That is who my goddaughter is. She will tilt at the windmills of those she truly loves, be they hers to tilt at or no.”

McCree blinked. Talking about the days when he’d been pushed out of Overwatch had made Reinhardt look tired, like the years were finally, finally beginning to wear away at this great monument of a man. But talking about Brigitte brought a glint to his intact eye.

“She is not afraid, Jesse, of giving her heart. Rather, she does not give it until she is certain it is what she wants to do. She knows its worth. She understands its import, and how truly precious it is. She respects herself enough, values herself enough, to know that only a person or a cause that, to her, is truly worthy is one to whom she will give her heart.” Reinhardt leaned forward, and the chair beneath him creaked a little. “The question I must ask is: do you believe you are worthy of it?”

McCree blinked, startled by the turnabout question, and looked down at his hands. He took a deep breath, turning the man’s words over in his mind. He hadn't come prepared to examine his own self like this, though he supposed it was only fair. He downed the rest of his whiskey, nodding at the barkeep for another, before answering.

“In all honesty? I don’t know. I’d like to be. I want to be. I’ve been workin’ hard to be a better man than I was since my Deadlock days — hell, since my Blackwatch days, too. Half the time I have no idea if I’ve gotten anywhere at all. Take a look at those wanted posters with my handsome mug on ‘em and you can see how other folks view that progress.”

It was a mere tap by Reinhardt standards, slapping the wood grain of the bar. “Ah, to hell with what other people think! Cowards and blowhards will _always_ think the worst of decent men and women. What matters is what you think.” Reinhardt gestured with his huge hand, prompting McCree to continue.

“Well… I like to think I’m a much better man than I was.” He looked Reinhardt in the eye. “As for her, I care a lot about her, and her happiness. I’d like t’ think she’d like having me be a part of that. I’m fine with having her affection--hell, it’s one of the best things that could ever happen to a no-account lead-slinger tumbleweed like me. That ain’t somethin’ I’m about to take for granted. As for her heart? Well.” He took another fortifying drink. “Dunno if I deserve it but I sure as hell want to try to. And as for mine, I dunno if she wants this raggedy ol’ thing but I'm starting to think it might be hers already, if she does.”

Reinhardt leaned back, taking a moment to let the sentiment sit. “And there we are. I suppose what happens next is up to her.”

He held up his pint, and McCree smiled as they touched glasses and drank. It was a brief respite though.

“So! About those wanted posters.”

“Aw, hell, Reinhardt…”

Reinhardt laughed. “Come now! I will not take away any of the gravity of what you just said. I know you meant every word. You are, like me, in your own way, a man of honor. But you are not exactly a safe man to know, with all that money on your head. None of us are these days, I suppose,” Reinhardt mused, lifting a large hand with a scar still pinkish with new skin. “But I would not have you be the death of her. She has risked herself so much, by coming here, by traveling with me, by taking up arms. I only hope you do not put her in more danger by being with her.”

McCree drank deeply, remembering the sound of bullets on a shield, and coppery blood, and that dead weight of her against him. “I don't want that either. If it comes down to it,” he paused, weighing the truth of his words. “I'd give myself up first, rather than let her be put in danger cuz of my history. You have my word on that.”

“I am glad to hear it. May it never come to that.” Reinhardt toasted this sentiment and drained his glass, then caught sight of someone over McCree's shoulder. “Ahh, and I think there is someone else who will also be glad to hear so!”

McCree turned to see that, yes, that would be one Torbjorn Lindholm, claw-hand and all, approaching the two of them from across the bar.

 _Make that one of them_ , he thought as he turned back to see Reinhardt had already abandoned McCree to his fate, waving as he made his way toward the door. It was impressive just how fast the old man could move when he wanted to, really.

“Don't you go haring off,” Torbjorn’s voice was gruff, and McCree couldn't read anything other than command into it. “I want to _talk_ to you.”

McCree wished there was much, much more whiskey in his glass. Or maybe none at all. “I thought you got all the talking out of your system prior.” Damn his own mouth--nevermind bounties, _that_ was the thing that would get him killed someday.

For a brief second McCree thought the little man would explode, but then something passed, and Torbjorn sighed instead, hauling himself into the seat that Reinhardt had abandoned. He directed his next remark at the bartender instead. “The usual for me, and his next one's on me.”

McCree stared at Torbjorn from under the brim of his hat, curious. “What's this then?” He asked, lifting the new glass of whiskey. “One last drink for the condemned?”

Before answering, Torbjorn had a long draught of his own drink, then set it down. “No, McCree, this is an apology. Of a sorts.”

There was the ever-so-brief thought that flew through McCree's head--that the drink might somehow be poisoned, even though he'd watched it get poured right from the bottle--before he dismissed it and raised the glass in an acknowledging salute before sipping at it.

The two sat in silence for a moment before McCree asked, voice dry, “Brigitte put you up to this?”

The look Torbjorn gave him was quelling. “We talked. She wasn't happy with me, but we worked it out.”

“Glad to hear it.”

More grumpy glaring. If looks could kill Torbjorn wouldn't need a single one of his machines. Finally, “I’m not saying I _like_ having you dating my daughter,” He said grumpily, lifting his mug again. When he continued, he seemed to be addressing the mug, not McCree. “But, on the other hand, that old man seems to like you. I don't trust his judgement as far as I can spit, but I trust him. And I trust my daughter. So.”

That seemed to be the end of that sentence. McCree digested that for a minute, sipping what was apparently his liquid apology. “For what it's worth, I trust her too. And I hope to be someone she can trust.”

All he could think was that the emotional honesty that had come with Reinhardt's conversation was carrying over with the whiskey. Or the other way around. Only explanation for it, really. Still, Torbjorn grunted, a noise of acknowledgement, with maybe some surprise mixed in there, then nodded, lifting his mug in a fractional salute.

McCree finished his whiskey, turning the glass over on the bar. “Apology accepted, sir.”

\--

“Lemme get this straight.” The man’s drawl was thick, low and guttural. “You’re paying us all this money to _not_ kill him?”

“Correct.” Reaper was losing what little patience he had with this idiot. “Capture him, incapacitate him, hell, rough him up for all I care. As long as he’s breathing. I’m the one who gets to kill Jesse McCree.”

The other man spat, then laughed. “I’d’ve once said that myself, but for that amount of money I guess you get to call the shots.”

“Glad we have an understanding.”

The other man, Lorenzo, was left staring at the dark swirl of smoke that was all he left behind--other than those more ephemeral bank transfers, of course. “Damn ghoul,” he growled, then left to gather what he needed.

Far, far away, over her electronic eavesdropping, Moira’s grin was like a scythe in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all the unsuspecting friends who I've bounced ideas off of in the last few days. Y'all are amazing, even if you'll never ever read this fic. <3


	11. Your Pretty Thing and the Friction That Sparks Your Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is engineering, both of machines and machinations.

“That is the end goal of this plan, of course,” Moira said, steepling her fingers and leaning back. Akande had been curious after all, about what Moira was doing. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, as much as he trusted anyone, but he did seem interested. Moira had determined it also wasn’t a desire to stifle her or micromanage her plans, so had decided that, fine, he could be briefed on this, if only to convince him that she was managing things just fine, thank you.

“You’re certain he is not worth trying to recruit instead?” Akande’s tone was even, reasonable, as he leaned back and studied her in return.

Reaper growled at the very idea, smoke curling around his fist on the table.. “Absolutely not.” 

Moira rolled her mismatched eyes, but it was Akande that asked the obvious. “And you’re certain your emotions are not getting in the way of your rationality, ‘Reaper’?” 

He just growled back, so Moira slid in her answer and opinion instead. She had worked with the man as well, after all. “He’s good, yes, but not so good as to be indispensable. And no one is as good as he thinks he is.”

“Hm.” The sound was non-committal. 

She continued. “Besides, he is merely the means to an end. Several ends, in fact.” She raised a finger, ticking off each goal as it was mentioned. “His death or capture weakens the new Overwatch group, whether or not they decide on his retrieval. If they do, more resources are wasted. The involvement of an entity besides ourselves creates more chaos.” Almost as an afterthought, Moira waved a hand at the shadow at the table. “And Gabriel here gets to take a name off of his list.”

“More than one, if I’m lucky.”

Moira granted that with a wave of her hand. Akande mused for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Very well. It seems that you have everything well in hand. Carry on.”

Smiling, Moira rose, swept an elegant bow, and left, her shadow following close behind. 

\--

“Jesse, this thing is so old it has _wheels_.” Brigitte stared in disbelief. 

“Sure she does.” McCree ran a hand down the curves of the bike, reminding Brigitte momentarily of earlier when that hand had been on her, a few hours before. A lover's caress. “She’s a classic, after all.”

She crouched, getting a closer look at the machine, running her hand along the engine block, noting the thick build-up of dust and dirt on the bike. And something else as well. “And a _combustion engine_!” 

McCree was beginning to look a little defensive now. “Yeah, I know, that’s why it’s been sitting around for so long.”

Brigitte stood, brushing off some of the dust from her knees. When he had said he’d wanted to show her something on this little side jaunt to an old, out-of-the-way garage in the American Southwest--no mission, just a day trip--she hadn’t been expecting this. She crossed her arms, considering the machine in front of her. 

McCree watched her bite her lip and make a circle around the bike, mulling it over. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. “Y’think you can do something with it? You’re the best engineer I know.”

She sighed, planting a fist on her hip as she stared at the bike a bit more, running calculations in her head. “Well…” She drew the word out, then finally looked at him. “I’m no expert at this sort of conversion, and it’s so old, I don’t know…”

The way McCree had touched the bike was almost reverent. There was certainly a story here, one that she didn’t need to know to know that suggesting he just get himself a brand new bike wouldn’t be appreciated. 

“The frame’s good and solid, every part is in good working order. It’s just the engine.” It was too hard to find even diesel, these days. Most things tended to run off electricity or other power sources, leaving only museum pieces like the one in front of her to use fuel for combustion engines. Which was why he’d thought of Brigitte, he’d explained. Switch out the engine system for a new, non-gas-using one and it would be good to go. “Right?”

He was looking at her with those, well, you couldn’t exactly call them puppy-dog eyes, she supposed, but it was close enough. Hang-dog, that was the word for it. There was no way she could say no. She threw her hands in the air. “Fine! Fine, I’ll do my best. That's...all I can promise.”

“That,” he said, ignoring the dust and the dirt to pull her close, “Is all I ask and more than I deserve.”

“Too right,” she replied, and kissed him.

\--

It wasn’t that McCree was bad with computers--you couldn’t live in the modern world and be completely terrible with them, after all. He just tended to prefer not to work with them. He could get things done, sure, check messages, all of that. But teasing out their secrets, making them spill their digital guts? No, that was never something he had never had a talent for. Basic search alerts were one thing, but to get more than that? He needed help. 

It was just trying to figure out how to get Winston’s help with this, with finding out this sort of information, without worrying him too much. “The Deadlock Gang? Who are they then?” Winston’s thick fingers paused over the keyboard as he looked to McCree.

“Who _were_ they, is the better question.” He sincerely hoped, anyway. “They were an arms dealing and smuggling gang, working in the American Southwest. They, uh, were also who I worked for before I came along and joined Blackwatch.”

Winston considered McCree, who he had known a rather long time, for a long minute. McCree generally didn’t like to talk about his pre-Blackwatch days--even more than he disliked talking about his Blackwatch days, in fact. And given what had come out in the intervening years about what had been going on in the shadow organization, Winston didn’t exactly blame him. “Is that so?”

McCree nodded. “And unfortunately I heard a rumor on the wind that someone from that old gang might be looking to come back and cause some trouble.”

“Someone?” Winston began typing, Athena pulling up information she thought he’d find useful. 

“That’s all I got. S’why I’m here asking you.”

“Well, alright then. I’ll let you know.” Winston gave a salute with a hand, continuing to key things in with his feet. 

McCree tipped his hat to the scientist, then made to leave. Winston’s voice stopped him first. “McCree, if they are... “

McCree rapped his knuckles against the frame of the door. “Then that’s something I gotta take care of.”

It was only after he had left that Winston realized McCree hadn’t said ‘we’. 

\--

The conversion process for McCree’s old motorcycle took longer than expected. And was more expensive too. Conversions of this sort always were, she explained tiredly one evening, having washed the grease off. If all you had to do was pop out the old engine and slot the new one in--like replacing batteries--it would be simple. But the rest of the system was used to running off of combustible fuels, and that affected not only the engine itself, but all the connections, how the systems drew power, how the bike was started, even weight distribution and steering. It was a whole system and changing one part cascaded down to the rest of the system. Even with her father’s help, it was a lot of work.

He told her he understood, and it was fine, it was ok, just as long as she hadn't given up on it yet. Because McCree had faith in her. In her skills and her know-how and her ingenuity and he had kissed her and she'd fallen asleep in his arms, dreaming of camshafts and miniaturized ionization units. 

Eventually, though, she’d led him into the workshop, and then out to the little outdoor area where they worked on projects that would be inadvisable (for one reason or another) to work on indoors. Brigitte waved at Bastion, who spent most of their time out here with their little bird. “Why don’t you go on in for a bit? I have something to do out here.”

Bastion returned a curious beep, tilting its head at the two humans. Brigitte laughed, making a shooing motion with her hand. “Go, I’ll show you later,” she promised.

With an acknowledging bwee-oop, Bastion trundled through the large sliding door into the workshop. Brigitte slid it most of the way down before turning back to Jesse and gesturing at the tarp-covered form sitting at the back. “Go ahead.”

Jesse strode forward, glancing back at her just as he placed a hand on the material covering it. Brigitte stood back by the door, arms folded over her chest, a little nervous but doing her best not to show it. He gave her a reassuring grin, then whipped the tarp off in one smooth motion.

The motorcycle stood there, leaning on its kickstand and gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Jesse was fairly certain that the bike had never looked this good before, not even when it was new. Here and there in the engine block were faint blue gleams that spoke of its new power source, but there were still tires, still the handlebars, still the gleaming metal backing of the single headlight. It didn’t look like a hoverbike. It looked like his old bike, reborn.

He realized he was staring silently when, from behind him, he heard Brigitte’s tentative voice. “Well?”

Instead of continuing to admire the bike, he turned, made three big strides over to her and pulled her into a passionate kiss, pouring his gratitude into physical expression. Finally, she pulled back, laughing. “I take it you like it then?”

“Copperhead, it’s _gorgeous_.” 

She laughed again, pulling away so she could grab his hand and bring him back over to the bike. Obviously, flattered as she was, she wanted him to further admire the work she was so proud of, now that she knew he liked it.

Obligingly, he walked around the machine again, noting the places where changes had been made--and the places where he knew they had to have been made, though he saw no outward sign of them. Grinning at her as giddy as a schoolboy, he slung a leg over the bike, settling onto it. Brigitte stepped back, taking in the whole picture with an answering grin. “Like what you see?” He drawled.

She laughed. “Mhm.” Then she gestured with her hand. “Go on then, give it a go.”

With a few practiced flicks, McCree prepped the bike, then hit the start button. The bike roared to life, and McCree stared down at it, astonished. Brigitte laughed, presumably at the shocked face he was making. The new engine, given that it didn’t do any of the same things the old one did, shouldn’t make any noise at all, save maybe a low whir. He looked up at her, stunned.. 

“Noise generators,” she explained, kneeling next to the rear of the bike where the exhaust pipes were. “Several of them, all through the bike.” She tapped the exhaust. “These will still vent heat, of course, but it also helps recreate the sound.” She stood again, beaming at him.

McCree was still too stunned for words. Experimentally, he revved the engine a few times with the throttle. As he did, the bike recreated the noise precisely. It was missing that true level of deep vibration that came with a combustion engine, but the noise was so spot-on perfect it didn’t matter. Brigitte stood there, smiling down at him. He reached up to pull her into a kiss, wrapping an arm around her middle so she was leaning into him. After a moment, they came up for air and she was still grinning at him. “So you like it then?”

“Bri, it’s amazing. I-I don’t even know what to say.”

She hummed a laugh, then kissed him again. “You’re very welcome.”

“What d’you say we take her for a spin?”

Brigitte blinked down at him. “Both of us?” 

He let go of her, shutting down the bike, then dismounting. “Sure. I’d say it’s just like riding a bike, ‘cept it _is_.”

She laughed. “Ok, ok, once we find helmets, alright?”

“Of course.” He touched fingers to the brim of his hat in salute. “One of the very few things I’d give this up for.”

“Good.” 

“‘Sides,” he drawled, grinning at her as they turned to go inside. “You know what they say.”

“What’s that?”

The grin widened. “Save a horse, ride a zero emissions vehicle.” 

She laughed so hard she needed to pause. “You’re so ridiculous, I love you.”

He hesitated just a second, and she ran her words back through her head, realizing what she’d just said.

His grin didn’t falter though. “Yes I am, but that don’t make it less true.” He made no comment on the other words that had made up that previous sentence.

So Brigitte ignored it too. It didn’t mean anything, it was fine. “Hmm.” They kept walking, Brigitte waving at Bastion as they passed through the workshop. “How’d I get involved with a ridiculous man like you, hm?”

“Maybe I should show you, huh?” And with that he tugged her down the corridor towards quarters, Brigitte laughing and walking beside him with a will.

It was nice, having a few hours to themselves, that evening, and they spent it well between the two of them. It was later, when they had worn themselves out with each other, that they were lying together in bed, too contented to get up. “See,” he drawled. “You got a ride after all.”

Her laugh was like warm whiskey down his spine as she curled into him, voice ever so slightly roughened from their activities just moments before. “Jesse McCree,” she murmured, tucking herself into his side. “I swear you’ll be the death of me.”

Brigitte drifting into sleep immediately after meant she didn’t notice the way he tensed, the chill that settled in his stomach despite all the warmth of her at that unknowing echo. Such different circumstances, and she had meant it as a joke, a compliment, praise, he knew. But between Torbjorn’s concerns, and Reinhardt’s worries, and Moira’s warnings, McCree was beginning to wonder if he should be here at all, if just his very presence was putting her in danger.

She slept soundly in his arms. McCree took a long, long time to get to sleep himself, while worries chased themselves around in his head like bees.

\--

The chime of his handheld woke him, and he fumbled for it in the darkness. It was an image file, he saw, the sender anonymous, and it took him a moment to parse what, exactly, was happening in the picture. Finally he saw that, yes, that was a face that he knew, all too well, and a crate of what looked like high-grade explosives. 

Swearing internally, Jesse sent a message to Winston, hoping the scientist ape was burning the midnight oil, then set it down to reattach his arm and begin to dress in the dark. He was glad they’d come to his room, he knew how to navigate it without light, knowing where the drawers were, where he kept his extra ammo, all of that.

Another ping came from his phone confirming that, yes, Winston was, in fact, still awake and wasn’t that fortuitous, because he had found some things that McCree would want to see. McCree finished buttoning his shirt, slipping one of his serapes on around his shoulders, slipping into his boots.

He looked down at Brigitte in the dim light, sleeping peacefully, hair spread out across his pillow in a red-gold halo. “Dammit,” He whispered to himself, then leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. She stirred, gave a sleepy mumble, but didn’t wake, even as he buckled on his holster and the door slid closed behind him.

The halls were nearly empty at this late hour, and his footsteps echoed eerily. Winston, when McCree found him, was in the downstairs part of his workshop-cum-office, tinkering with something. He looked up when Jesse entered. “Ah, there you are.”

“Here I am,” he acknowledged, two fingers to his hat in a salute. “What’ve you got?”

Winston gestured towards the stairs, making his own way up to his computer setup much more quickly than McCree, meaning that by the time Jesse got there, Winston was already pulling up items of interest. “Well, along with what you’ve just sent me, there’ve been reports in recent months of movement at some warehouses and the like thought to be long abandoned.” He pulled a certain video into focus. “Including an old garage,” his voice was full of humor at this particular tidbit.

McCree could see why. On the footage from that particular security cam was himself and Brigitte, wheeling the old bike out to the transport to bring it back here to Gibraltar. “So you’re saying we just missed ‘em?”

Winston shrugged, keying up a few more videos. All different locations, and it was hard to make out exactly who it was. But it was all locations that McCree vaguely recalled, from so, so long ago. “It would seem so.”

McCree glowered at the movement on the screen. “But what do they _want_ all that for anyway? Who’s buying?”

In response, Winston keyed up a few more things. Videos that showed crates moving in, but not, McCree noticed, much out. “They are, I think.”

That was deeply, deeply unsettling to McCree. “What are they up to?” His tone was low, directed mostly at himself, which was good because Winston didn’t have an answer anyway.

“We need more information,” Winston pointed out. 

Athena chimed in. “There is currently no further information available on this subject, at this time.” If the AI’s voice could sound disappointed, it did.

“Well then,” McCree leaned back, settling his hands in his belt. “I guess someone’s just gonna have to go out there and _get_ some more info, huh?”

Winston rumbled agreement. “We’ll assemble a team in the morning.”

McCree gave Winston a firm pat on the shoulder. “You do that.” With another touch of his fingers to his hat, he strode out of the lab. Winston didn’t need to know he wasn’t going to wait until morning. He’d find out soon enough. He couldn’t ask anyone else to put themselves at risk with this, there wasn’t a need. He’d handle this himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will note that "Save a horse, ride a zero emissions vehicle is an actual line that was recorded and not used and that's tragic so it gets used here.
> 
> Also the line "I'm a cowboy, on a hover horse I ride" so, y'know. There we are.


	12. We Waited to See if the Rain Would Come Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which McCree hares off on his own and Brigitte deals with her feelings.

She wasn’t immediately alarmed, but then, she didn’t have any reason to be. Sure, Brigitte had woken up to an empty bed in his room, not seeing him when she blearily peered around. But that wasn’t unheard of. She tended to be hard to wake and would sleep late if nothing and no one woke her up. She assumed he had gone to go get coffee--he didn’t have her nifty little machine, after all--and hadn’t wanted to wake her. So she dressed and went to her room to get fresh clothes for the day before doing anything else. It was while waiting on the little single-cup brewer to puff through its cycle that she entertained the thought of maybe moving a few more things to his room, have another shirt or two over there, maybe. Wouldn’t have to come back here every single time she needed clean pants or whatever.

She was pulling her hair back into its usual style when the knock on her door came. “Come in! Oh, Winston! Good morning.”

“Morning.” He seemed to be looking around the room for something. Or someone. “McCree, uh, isn’t here?”

She pulled her ponytail secure, then shook her head, making a beeline for her coffee. “No, he um. He wasn’t in his room when I woke up.” 

Winston, of course, had caught wind of the relationship that had been going on around the same time that Brigitte had mentioned it to Reinhardt. He had taken her talking about it as license to mention it to others, at least as far as those at the Watchpoint went, and she had let him; both because it was harder to squash the rumors once they got out, and also because it was just easier to let Reinhardt tell people, and then the only questions she’d have to answer were the ones that filtered through to her. 

He looked worried though, which worried her in turn. “You haven’t seen him this morning then?”

Brigitte took a long drink of the coffee, relishing the bittersweet bite, before answering, slowly. “No, I- I haven’t.”

“Huh.” Winston looked perturbed, but didn’t elaborate further. “Well, alright, I won’t keep you then.”

He made to leave, and Brigitte followed him out the door. “Oh no no no, Winston, what’s going on? Is Jesse missing?” 

Winston shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t say _missing_ exactly…”

“Winston…” 

Her tone wasn’t harsh, or even intimidating, but he relented. “We… talked last night. There was information about some gang, I was doing research he’d asked me about and--”

“And now we can’t find him,” Brigitte finished the thought. Another thought occurred to her and she turned on her heel, heading straight for the main workshop of the Watchpoint. She didn’t have to look to hear Winston following behind her after a second, the same thought occurring to him once she’d led his thoughts that way.

Bastion gave a surprised bwoop when she barged out into the workshop’s yard, but she ignored the Omnic. She came to so swift a halt that Winston almost ran into her from behind, barely managing to stop. “Brigitte?”

Her heart was in her stomach, and it took her a long moment to answer. The bike, the motorcycle she had spent so long fixing up for him, was gone, an empty patch of ground in its place. Bastion gave another questioning bwee-op that brought her back to herself. “Yeah, I, um. I think we can safely say he’s no longer at the Watchpoint.” Her tone was soft, even, a little detached.

Winston had caught a look over her shoulder, and backed off. “I see.” 

Brigitte focused on Bastion, the bird on its head echoing the questioning look it was giving her. “You didn’t happen to… see when he took the motorcycle?” Bastion shook its head with a downward chirring noise. “That’s alright.” She summoned up a brief smile at the Omnic, then turned to go inside. 

She made for the nearest workbench, leaning against it on her hands, staring down at but not really seeing the schematics spread out over the surface under her fingers. For a long moment she stood like that, reactions and emotions crowding each other out until her thoughts were a whirring buzz. 

“Uh, are… you alright?” Winston asked tentatively, his voice bringing her back to herself. 

She shook her head to quiet it. “I’m--” She paused. “Well, I’m not fine, but.” A shrug. Another shake of her head and she pulled out her handheld from a pocket, tapping in a message.

Winston nodded. “I sent him a few messages earlier. No response.”

“Mm.” Nevertheless, Brigitte sent her own messages. She had pretty different relationship with him than Winston did, after all. But there they sat, unopened, unread. For now, anyway. She let the handheld drop to the workbench, then sighed deeply, dropping her elbows to the table and burying her head in her hands. “I don’t understand, why would he just _leave_? No backup, no saying where’s he’s going…”

“I’m sorry.” Winston sounded rueful and Brigitte looked up at him, confused. “If I’d known he was going to go off on his own, I wouldn’t have given him all that information.”

She smiled at him. “No, it’s not your fault, Winston.” She perked up, standing a little straighter. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he might be going?” She asked hopefully.

But he shook his head, his tone apologetic. “No, all the sources I was able to find are on the other side of the world. I have no idea where he might be headed from here, on a motorbike.”

Brigitte’s shoulders fell again. “Then I suppose the only thing to do is wait for him to contact us.” She stared at her handheld with its messages, sent and all unread, and wished for it to change.

\--

Jesse felt the buzz of an incoming message on his handheld, and throttled the bike up further, faster, focusing on riding. It felt like Brigitte had put the wind into this thing, and it could go like blue lightning. The message was probably just Winston, after all, demanding to know where he was, why he hadn’t waited for a team to be assembled, where he was going. 

It wasn’t even that McCree didn’t need backup, he was pretty certain he would, eventually. The trouble was there wasn’t anyone he didn’t feel bad about dragging into this mess, with all the danger and death riding on it. Besides, it was still only rumor and stories in the wind, for now. He couldn’t ask his friends--his family--to risk themselves just to go check out whispers and notions as thin as gunsmoke. Not with how precarious a position Overwatch as a whole was in right now, operating illegally, under the radar, bounties aside.

And then there was that bounty, sitting pretty on his head. If it was just his own head, that would be one thing, but the thought of who they might go through to get to McCree and that sixty million dollars…

He sped up even faster, trying to leave his thoughts behind.

\--

‘RU OK?’

Brigitte glanced at her handheld, saw Reinhardt’s name, and sighed, putting down the wrench she was holding. Winston had gone off to do more research, see if he could find a trace of where McCree might have run off to. He didn’t have quite the access to security cameras and channels that Overwatch had once had, sure. But there were more unsecured feeds in more places than most people would probably be comfortable with, if they had the notion to think about it, so he was watching, and searching.

Back in her room she had plenty of her own projects to work on, small little things, little servos, improvements in her armor’s cooling systems, that sort of thing. And if it meant that those curious to see how she was taking this whole thing were kept at bay by her closed door, all the better.

Now there was a decision to make though. Someone had obviously told Reinhardt what had happened. On the one hand, Brigitte was glad he wasn’t at her door--yet--demanding to know if she was ok and, if not, what he could do to help. On the other… 

‘I’m ok. Working on stuff’

With that sent, she returned to working apart the casing of the handle of one of her old hammers. She’d improved the design since then, but it was always useful to keep her old prototypes and previous versions about. Sometimes you needed to go simple, or to revisit an old idea--and no matter what, old parts could always be used in something else.

When the next incoming message buzz sounded, Brigitte spent a few seconds longer finishing the job of removing the bolt holding the cover plate on before looking at the device. As expected, another text from Reinhardt.

‘OK WE WILL TALK LATER THEN’

Brigitte sighed, both at the all-caps (Reinhardt tended to text a lot like he talked, and you would be forgiven for thinking his handheld was stuck in capslock) and at the promised Talk this message foretold. She was _not_ looking forward to that sort of thing. Everyone would have questions, want to know about her feelings, about what was going on in her head. When Brigitte hardly knew herself, that sort of interrogation was not something she was looking forward to.

‘not coming to sparring today. sorry’

Message sent, Brigitte went back to her work, ignoring the buzz of an actual call, when she saw that it was Reinhardt on the other end.

She had gotten the entire hammer apart, spread out the components across her small, in-room workbench, before the knock at the door came. Brigitte sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Please go away Reinhardt.”

Instead the door opened, and on a much smaller figure than her knight and mentor. “If I’m not Reinhardt, can I come in?” Angela asked, leaning against the doorframe into the room.

Brigitte started, standing. “Angela! O-of course, come in.” The chair she had been sitting on at her workbench was still the only proper chair in the room. She offered it to her guest, taking a seat on the bed when Angela demurred. 

So invited, Angela settled herself gently on the seat, glancing at the project Brigitte had spread across the bench. “You seem busy.”

Brigitte shrugged. “Just a little project. What I _really_ need to do is some armor improvements. I’ve got some new ideas for--” she stopped herself, remembering who those ideas were for. “For, uh, power armor. You know, see if I can improve things a bit.”

“Mm.” Angela ran her fingers just over some of the more interesting-looking parts, looking at them and not Brigitte. “That is always a noble pursuit.”

Brigitte’s acknowledging smile was brief, and the two fell into a silence. “Angela,” she began tentatively. “What do you need?” That seemed to be the most direct--and least offensive--way of asking.

The way Angela’s hand faltered over the parts, the quick, fake smile, the nervous laugh--yes, Brigitte was right in thinking she’d had another purpose coming here. Before Angela had wound up to either present her with a lie or confront her with some feelings nonsense, Brigitte got up, striding back over to the bench. Standing next to Angela, she deftly began to pick out parts, tools, knowing exactly where each component went, slotting it in with careful fingers. 

Angela seemed a little taken aback, staring at Brigitte as she worked. “I-I only wanted to know if you were alright--”

“I’m fine,” Brigitte snapped, hands working swiftly. A power module, under her fingers, made a hum that, judging by her face, Angela found faintly alarming. “Really, I am, and I’m a little tired of people asking me.”

Angela stared, obviously flustered. “Brigitte, _bärchen_ , I didn’t mean--”

With a harder thump than she meant to produce, Brigitte put down the screwdriver she was holding. Angela was like an older sister to her, it was true. The problem was Brigitte had older sisters, and sometimes Angela could get on her nerves just as much as they could. “Look. Just. If you don’t have anything useful, why are you here?”

There was a moment where Brigitte thought Angela was going to get angry with her, get into a fight with her, something. Which, if she was honest with herself, Brigitte would prefer to this sympathy, this well-meaningness.

Then Angela smiled, looking down at her folded hands. “Ok. You’re right.” The smile she brought up to Brigitte’s eyes was fake, but Brigitte didn’t want to argue with it. Angela stood, brushing invisible dust off of her trousers. “I’ll leave you to your work then.”

Brigitte sighed, rubbing her nose with a gloved hand. “Angela, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“I know, I know, but you’re clearly in no mood to talk.” The older woman patted her on the shoulder as she passed, leaving Brigitte to her sulk.

With another sigh, Brigitte plunked her head down on the workbench, and wished the day would end already. Then, after a moment or two, she pushed herself to her feet, stripped off her work gloves, and went to find something else to do.  
\--

The bike, once Brigitte had gotten through with it, could pretty much go forever. McCree, though, was only human, and as such, did, eventually, need to take a break. Finding a beer, a snack, and a shady place to sit were fairly simple asks, even with his limited grasp of the local language. Grilled meat and potable drink were universals, and McCree was used to the heat even in the shade. 

The local watering hole was tiny, dim, and took his money, and that was all he really needed. It wasn’t until he was through the first beer and into the second before he pulled out his handheld and finally checked it. As he thought, the earliest messages were from Winston, letting him know that he had a team in mind, that there was a possibility there was more info elsewhere, and could McCree meet him in the lab? 

Then more concerned messages, then a lull, after no response from McCree. Off checking the base, seeing if other people had seen him, McCree could practically see it.

A little after that were the first messages from Brigitte. Calm, measured, not panicking, not freaking out, a little worried, sure, but pure Brigitte. He appreciated that about her. Just the one or two texts though. A message from Reinhardt, his typical all-caps approach McCree had to remind himself not to read as yelling, and then nothing, for a few hours now. 

McCree took a long pull and drained the beer before heading back out to the motorcycle. He wanted to get where he was going and get back, sooner rather than later. The quicker he was back in Gibraltar, the better.

\--

The blaster whirred as it reloaded, and Brigitte sighted down at the target again, squeezing off another volley of shots. She had the vague notion that her aim was getting better, and the next time the blaster ran out, she hit the button to bring the target closer and check.

She sighed. Not a great grouping, still too spread out. 

“Not bad.” 

Brigitte started, whirling around to face Genji. She hadn’t noticed him coming in, which didn’t say much for her awareness at the moment. She tried several responses on her tongue, then settled for a shrug. “It’s alright. I’m getting better.”

He nodded, surveying the target--just a standard range target, a floating, modular bot (not an omnic, definitely not, just a machine, little more advanced than her coffee maker). Then he switched his gaze to her. She shifted uncomfortably and examined the blaster, checking it over. “I must admit, I am a little surprised to find you here.”

Brigitte looked up. “Oh?”

“Mm. I thought I would find you in the sparring ring. Possibly trying to best Reinhardt, yet again.” A hint of a smile across that scarred face. 

Brigitte returned the hint of smile, finally setting the blaster down. Crossing her arms, she leaned back against the barrier of the firing booth. “I would be, except Reinhardt wants to talk, and I don’t really feel like doing that right now.” Her tone carried the faintest hint of warning, lest Genji try and start on that conversational gambit too.

“What, talking?” Genji feigned innocence. “About what?” 

Brigitte gave him a Look. A Look that clearly said she wasn’t buying it. “Genji…”

He held his hands up in placation. “Alright, alright. All _I_ wanted to talk about was a plan for bailing McCree’s butt out when he inevitably needs it.”

This produced a grin from Brigitte, a proper smile. “Ok, _that_ I think we can talk about.” She feared Reinhardt would have been all sympathy, ready to comfort her, ready to help her work her _feelings_ out. But that wasn’t what she wanted--what she needed, right this second. Her feelings were too complicated to be worked out with a padded mace and sympathy. 

“Come on then. We’ll have a cup of tea and discuss strategy.”

It was a matter of moments to shut down this part of the practice range--she helped maintain the place, after all--and she was following Genji through the base. The rooms he shared with Zenyatta, when the Omnic monk was here, were sparse, a minimum of decorations in the room to clutter it up. Genji’s swords sat in a stand against one wall, and one whole wall opened up to an outer part of the rock. Brigitte got the vague notion that this room hadn’t been intended as a room to live in when it was first built, but Genji and his mentor had repurposed it to their needs.

There was a low table set up outside, and Genji ushered her to it, moving swiftly through the processes of tea-making. Soon, there was a pot of steaming green tea sitting in the middle of the table, and a pair of porcelain cups.”Genmaicha,” Genji explained, waving a hand at the pot.”One of my favorites.” After a moment, he poured out a steaming up and slid it over to her, before pouring one for himself. 

Sitting in silence, she sipped at the tea, the light breeze off the sea filtering through. The tea was nice, a sort of nutty flavor rounding out the astringent taste she was usually used to with green teas. The breeze must be from the south today, the faintest metallic tang of desert sands baked under hot sun carried on it. For a moment, even her whirling thoughts calmed. 

“So,” Genji began after they had had a few moments to soak in the silence. “McCree has gone off on his own, and we have no idea where he has gone.”

Brigitte set the cup down, sighing. “Well. He took the bike, so he’s probably somewhere in Europe still. Or…” She trailed off, looking out toward the horizon. It was the wrong side of the Rock to see the Mediterranean, but she knew there was a constant stream of ships over and across the straight and the sea. Some of them… “Maybe a ferry? They let you take vehicles on ferries.”

Genji blinked in surprise, having not thought of that before she’d mentioned it. “That is very true.”

“But I have no _idea_ where he might be going. Is there someone he knows? Some place?” She shook her head. Her voice got smaller and quieter as she continued. “I feel like I should know _something_ and I don’t know anything at all.”

He frowned, concerned, slowly choosing his words. “McCree is a man who keeps things, ah, close to the chest, I think is the expression? I am not surprised.”

“Yeah, but, I’m not--” She stopped herself, balling her hands up into fists on the table, then grabbing the teacup. 

After a moment, he gently prompted her. “You are not what?”

She shook her head. “It’s just I thought I was different to him, something else, something-- but that’s--” Another shake of her head. She wasn’t stupid, or silly, or any of those things, but among all the whirling one thought had gotten stuck and she couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it yet. She didn’t even know how to word it.

Genji sat as silently as a monk, giving her the time and the space she needed. It was so different from her father, from Angela, from even Reinhardt, that it was reassuring in a way. This was Genji, after all. He didn’t gossip, wasn’t cruel; cared, but in a way that was that of a friend, and not a mentor or a father or a sister. So she confessed. He was a kind of monk, or something, after all. “I-I know he’s going after some information probably, but I can’t help thinking he ran off because I accidentally said that-- that I loved him.”

He let out a breath of laughter and she looked up at him sharply. He placated her with a shake of his head. “And here I was worried it was something dire.”

“Genji!”

Another laugh, not cruel, not mocking, just genuinely amused. “McCree is many things, some of them good,” he began. “But if that was the reason he had run off, he would have told you, I think.”

Brigitte eyed him skeptically. “Really?”

“Truly.” 

Another long moment of silence, then Genji gave into his curiosity. “How did you ‘accidentally’ tell him such a thing?”

Brigitte blushed, flustered. “It was just. Heat of the moment, I was tired, it’s nothing.”

“Was it true?”

She stared at him. He looked levelly back at her, apparently content to wait for her answer for as long as it took. As long as it was true. Finally she put voice to her thoughts. “I-I think it is.” Her voice was small, but she nodded once, setting her jaw firmly. “Yes. It is.”

Genji smiled, kind and beatific. “So we must be certain to retrieve him in one piece then, yes?”

Brigitte couldn’t keep the bashful grin off her lips, smiling into her teacup instead. “Mhm.” 

\--

The next break came after the sun had gone down, once clouds had started to roll in. A storm was coming, and McCree did not relish being out in it.That was one of the few downsides of a motorcycle, even one that didn’t need gas: protection from the elements was non-existent beyond what you wore on you. 

Gradually the din of the engine in his ears faded to be replaced with the preternaturally quiet sounds of desert night outside of a city. This was little more than a collection of small, squat buildings on the edge of nowhere, but he recognized a word for inn well enough. Probably no chance of a drink, he thought mournfully, but ah well. 

The interior was dimly lit, a few lamps illuminating the small table being used as a desk, the woman with her book, the hushed quiet of a place where few people ever came. 

“Uh, _chambre pour une nuit_ , uh. _Juste moi. Sil vois plait_.” Jesse’s command of French was terrible, limited to what few words he’d taught himself over the years, muddling along. Spanish and English he could do. His problem with Italian was how close it was to Spanish without actually being Spanish (though he wasn’t nearly as bad at it as he had led them to believe, that one time in Venice). French was the one that had decided to add all sorts of unnecessary letters to itself, but he could still muddle through. No use trying to pretend he wasn’t not-from-around-here, after all.

The little old lady, who looked to his eyes to be about a thousand years old, narrowed her eyes at him, but took his paid-up-front money, showed him to a room, and left him with the key. The room was bare bones, little more than a bed, a sink, and a mirror, but it would do. 

Sinking down on the bed, he finally checked his handheld again, and was a little surprised to see that he had a voice message from Brigitte. Messages from some of the other team members--another from Winston with some actual info, one curious from Lena, one cryptic from Genji, but it was that recording that caught his attention.

Curiosity overtaking him, he played the message. Her voice was tinny over the poor connection, but still unmistakably Brigitte. “Hey, Jesse, it’s me. I-- Well, I wanted to call to let you know that Genji and I--and everyone else--are here ready to bail you out when, um, _if_ you need it.”

McCree laughed to himself at her unsubtle verbal backspacing. There was no denying he was a magnet for trouble, as much as anyone else at the new Overwatch, if not more, so it was fair to think that, yeah, at some point he’d probably need help. 

The recording continued. “I also wanted to…” Her voice trailed off, and Jesse peered at the device to make sure the recording was still playing. Finally, she continued. “To just let you know that If you want me, if you _need_ me, just call. I’ll be there, no matter what. I hope you know that. And--” Her voice faltered, getting smaller, more unsure. It made McCree uncomfortable. Nothing should make his bright, beautiful, epic Brigitte smaller. “Anything I might have said? I know it’s probably not why you left so suddenly, I know, but I just wanted to say… It- it doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to mean. All this. It… yeah. ”

There were a few more seconds of silence. “I hope you’re safe. Let me know.”

McCree stared at the device for a moment, then replayed the message, Brigitte’s voice filling the tiny closet of a room. How did he respond to that? Of course he knew she’d back him up, he’d do the same for her. He had left specifically to keep her--and the rest of them--out of the trouble following him though, but what she had said was certainly a factor in that, just not in the way he was afraid she thought.

The trouble was he didn’t know how to tell her that, especially with no more information than the thread he was following. He wanted to reassure her, tell her it was fine, that he hadn’t been spooked by what she’d said--it had taken a moment or two of pondering but he had realized what she’d meant eventually--but he didn’t know how.

With a heavy sigh, Jesse set the device aside and resolved to sleep on it. Maybe the morning would bring answers.


	13. Been Wearing Down the Bones In My Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot thickens, and our cowboy calls for backup.

McCree woke early the next morning in the same place he'd been--which he supposed was to be expected. No answers had magically appeared in the night. The only thing that had was a bad cramp up the remainder of his left arm. Out here, on the road, he didn’t like taking the prosthetic off when he slept. He had to be ready to roll out of bed and into action, even all the way out here.

Fortunately, he could solve at least one trouble without too much thinking on his part. He wasn’t sure he’d managed to hide his flask and the few pulls he’d taken from it (had to be sure to make it last long enough) from the proprietor of this establishment. But since he’d paid in cash, was leaving as soon as possible, and didn’t give a single good goddamn otherwise, he didn’t care.

He was out and on the road, the motorcycle revving (in its way) under him before he realized he hadn’t yet called Brigitte back. Hadn’t sent a message to anyone at the Watchpoint, in fact. So when he felt the buzz of an incoming message over the artificial vibrations of the machine under him, he slowed, pulling off to the barren side of the barren road that stretched out and up into olympian distance. 

‘i hear ur lookin for info’

An unlisted number, one that even the system Winston had designed had to take a moment with. After a long, long moment, the system on his handheld put a tentative name to the new contact--Make that old contact.

McCree smirked, shooting a text message back, stuffing the phone back into his pocket, and riding off into the haze of the morning. His gunsmoke lead was smelling more like fresh powder.

\--

“Of coooourse he went off on his own earlier than you were expecting, and to where no one thought he’d go,” Sombra drawled the word out like it was bubblegum in her mouth. “What else do expect from _Senor_ Joel?”

Moira, leaning nonchalantly against the table, gave short laugh just this side of too elegant to be called a snort. “A fair point.”

“But I _do_ know where he’s going.” Sombra started pulling up icons and items on her desktop. Moira leaned in to take a closer look.

“Well, that could prove useful to us,” she decided finally. She shifted her gaze to another icon on the screen. “And how is our little Deadlock friend doing?”

Sombra flicked the window that had caught her eye to the forefront. “He’s following the plan to the letter like a good little _pero_.”

Moira rapped her knuckles on the desk. “Good. Keep an eye on him. Wouldn’t want him trying anything stupid, especially without his boss to keep him in line.”

“Mm.”

\--

“Still nothing?”

Brigitte looked up from the rusted bolt she was trying to pry out of an old part as Angela entered the workshop, and shook her head. She shot a glance at her mobile, lying on the desk nearby, then back. “Not yet.”

Angela made her way to the workbench Brigitte was using at the moment, seeming to pick her next words carefully. “You seem to be taking things… pretty well,” she observed finally, fiddling with a bolt Brigitte had already managed to remove.

“What,” she scoffed, applying the wrench to the bolt with probably a little more force than was strictly necessary. “Did you expect me to cry and carry on like some damsel in distress?” With a huff, she set the wrench down and picked up the wax she was using to try and get the part off. 

Angela gave her a look. “We both know that you have never been that kind of girl.” Brigitte summoned up a small ghost of a smile for her friend. “I just want to know if you are really alright.”

Brigitte put the wax down with a long sigh. She seemed all at odds, for a moment, before collecting herself enough to answer. 

“I mean. I miss him. I want him to come back, but I--” She looked up at Angela, swallowing down the emotions that threatened to swamp her. “I want _him_ to want to come back. Does that make any sense?”

“More than you know.” There was a rueful note of understanding in Angela’s voice. There were questions there, things Brigitte felt the edges of but knew she was missing. 

Brigitte fiddled with the wrench she had put down for another long, silent moment. There were so many things on both sides of the conversation that weren’t being said, for all their various reasons.

Angela put her hand on Brigitte’s arm. “I wanted to ask, because Genji and I are going off to do some relief work. And there’s an old contact, we think we may be able to get some information. But if he calls in the next day or so, we won’t be able to come with you to back him up.”

“You know that if he does call, I’m going, right?”

A wry smile was Angela’s response. “I would expect nothing less from you.”

\--

The building looked as if a good stiff breeze would blow it down, though the buildings close in on either side seemed to be a buffer against that, at least. McCree had stashed the bike a little ways away, hidden, but not too far, before making his way here on foot. He pounded on the door, waiting for an answer.

After a moment or two, just as McCree was getting ready to start knocking again, the door opened a crack, revealing nothing more than a pair of narrow, cold blue eyes. “Huh,” said the man behind the door. “So it really is you.”

McCree touched the brim of his hat in salute. “Roscoe. It’s been a dog’s age since I seen you last.” He paused. “Y’gonna let me in?”

There was a brief moment where it seemed like possibly he wouldn’t for whatever reason, but Roscoe swung the battered door open, revealing the dark interior. McCree strode in and the door was shut behind him. Roscoe was a tall man, bald, tanned and leathery skin, though he definitely seemed older than when McCree had known him all those years ago.

Roscoe hurried over to a cabinet set into the wall, opening it up and pulling out an unlabeled bottle and two small glasses, McCree was pleased to see. He took the seat at the low table Roscoe gestured to. When he twitched his poncho around to sit without tugging on it, Roscoe’s eyes went to the revolver on his hip. “You’re still carrying that old piece around, huh?”

McCree took the small glass Roscoe had filled, downing a good half of it in one belt. It was strong, and of no particular quality, but McCree had had far worse. “It does me alright.” He eyed Roscoe as he gulped down his own glass. “I thought you got out of the gun-running business ages ago though.”

A snort. “I did. Young man’s game, that. Like so many other things.” Roscoe poured another glass, topping McCree’s off at the same time. 

“But you’ve got intel?” McCree leveled a look over the glass before drinking more.

“Just because I’ve been out of the business doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to things.” 

McCree tilted the glass in a ‘fair point’ gesture. Roscoe took another gulp of the supposed alcohol before going on. He seemed nervous, McCree noted uneasily. He really hoped this wasn’t a trap. If it was, he could handle it, but he’d really rather get information instead. He leaned back into the low couch, twitching back the poncho again. “So what is it you’ve got, Roscoe?” He was uneasy, yes, but his tone didn’t betray it, confident and even.

Roscoe sighed heavily, shaking his head and pouring himself another glass. “I assume you’ve heard your old gang’s on the move again?”

“They haven’t been mine for a long time. But yeah, I heard that.” More than heard--he’d had a run-in with certain folks before he’d gone back to the Watchpoint, finally. “Last I heard they were buying stuff up, but Ashe and B.O.B.--at least what was left of him--got caught, thrown in a jail down that way.” Which should have put the gang out of commission and on the back heel, for the time being.

“And what makes you think a lady like Ashe is gonna sit quietly in a jail cell and serve her time?” Roscoe asked flatly, implying McCree was an idiot if he believed such a thing. “Someone’s stock-piling explosives outside of Phoenix. Little ghost town, using the mines.”

It was his old stomping grounds, once upon a time, and he got back there fairly often. Was where he’d been when Winston had sent out that recall, in fact. He’d had business there. Nothing Roscoe was saying made McCree feel any better about any of this. He’d have to go out there and investigate himself, like as not. Though, for that one, he’d take some backup.

Roscoe was beginning to seem more and more nervous, even after having another drink. Something was definitely up. “Thanks for the hospitality, but I really should be going.” He stood, draining his glass and placing it upside-down on the table. 

Roscoe stared up at him. “Y-you sure? No rush after all. Stay, have another drink.”

“No I really think I should be going.” With that, McCree strode forward, pulling open the door. Roscoe had scrambled up and followed behind him, blinking in the filtered sunlight that made it down this far. 

He seemed about to say something, starting and stopping about four times. Finally, with a shake of his head, he sighed deeply. “You should watch your back McCree. Or get someone to watch it for you, I guess.”

McCree stared at the other man, confused and unnerved. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

As the old, scarred wood shut behind him, McCree decided that it was probably time to call for backup. 

\--

Brigitte almost missed the buzz of her handheld thanks to the noise of her welding torch. Once she realized what it was though, she shut off the tool and dove for her handheld, pulling her goggles off as she went. 

It was McCree, finally--finally!--and he was calling and she was not petty enough to make him leave a message. Not when she could talk to him right this second. “Jesse?” She answered.

“Hey there, Copperhead.” He sounded relieved. “I was hoping you’d answer my call.”

“Of course I was gonna answer. Why wouldn’t I?” Of course, she could think of all the same reasons he could for why she might not have, judging by his momentary silence on the other end of the line. She took the opportunity to jump in with her pressing questions. “Where are you? Do you need backup?”

He laughed. “I was actually just about to ask.”

Brigitte was already stripping off her gloves, powering down the tools that needed it. “Good. I’ll come right away.”

“I’m not far. Morocco. Little town up in the mountains. I’ll send you the coordinates.”

Armor, hammer, talk to Tracer about transport, all things on Brigitte’s mental list as she hurried about the workshop. “And what made you finally decide you needed backup?” Might as well know what sort of situation she was getting herself into. 

“I found some information, but the person I got it from was acting kinda fishy. I got one more place to check out here, but I want someone watching my back.”

“Of course.” She frowned, pausing briefly in her busy actions. “Genji and Angela, they’re out doing something. I don’t know if they’ll be able to come.”

He paused too, then continued. “If all you can muster up is you, that’s alright too. Might be better. In, out, and we can be gone quick as lightning.”

Brigitte worried, of course, but what he said made sense. She’d just have to convince Reinhardt and Pappa of that. “Alright. I trust you. I’ll see you soon.” With that, she ended the call, getting a move on.

On the other end, McCree frowned at the device. She trusted him, and he trusted her, it was true. He just very much hoped that trust was not misplaced.

\--

Brigitte had told Ray to stay with the ship, and he was more than happy to. Among the collection of oddities that made up the new Overwatch, Ray’s most special abilities were his excellent piloting skills and his ability to grow a mean beard. She appreciated the latter, but was very much in need of the former. Genji was out with Angela on a relief mission of some sort she’d heard, and Tracer was on standby, ready to get them out immediately if the situation worsened. And so she’d turned to the second-best pilot (and he took pride in that distinction, getting to work with Tracer on a daily basis again, after all) that she knew.

The town was made up of a collection of low-slung, brown buildings, dotting the sloping foothills in this valley. Ray had landed in a copse of woods a little ways off, behind a hill, just out of sight. It wasn’t the most subtle, but it would do for a short pick-up mission, like she hoped this would be.

Brigitte had made her way to the coordinates Jesse had given her, her shield compacted, hammer slung over her back. There was no way to disguise the clunk of her armor, but she was a fair-skinned six-foot redhead in a town in the Atlas Mountains. She was never going to inconspicuous.

Then again, neither was Jesse McCree. 

He was doing a fair job of it, hat down, poncho wrapped around him, no glint of gun or bullets to betray his lethalness as he lurked in this back alley. She spotted him before he saw her, breath catching in her throat.

He must have heard something, head snapping up in alert. He relaxed fractionally when he saw it was her at the mouth of the alley. “Hey.”

She didn’t quite know how to answer even this simple greeting, staring for a long moment. Then, without another word, she rushed forward to him, wrapping him in her arms. 

“Whoa, hey!” He immediately responded, clasping her close, pressing a light kiss to her hair. “Hey there.”

Later, later she might be mad at him, might berate him for not bringing back-up with him, for haring off on his own, but right now and right here? He was safe in her arms and that was what mattered. 

For a moment anyway. She pulled back and punched him lightly in the arm. “That’s for leaving without me!” 

“Hey now!” McCree rubbed the spot like he’d actually been hurt, though she knew he hadn’t. He laughed like he was about to make a joke, then stopped, seeing her expression. “Hey.” He put his hand to her cheek and she had to remind herself that she was still unhappy with him and shouldn’t lean into the touch. 

With a sigh, she gave up, leaning forward to kiss him thoroughly instead. Short, but sweet, and she was pulling away. “I’m glad you’re ok. I’m glad you called for me.”

He smiled, kissing her again. But when she tried to tug on his hand to get him to follow her back to the transport, he resisted. “What is it?”

McCree put a hand to his hat, readjusting it in that oh-so-slightly sheepish way he had. “Thing is, there’s one more thing I wanna check out. While we’re here.”

Brigitte bit her lip, holding on to his hand. It was less of a team than she’d really like, but the two of them together could probably get themselves out of almost as much trouble as they could get into. And there was always Ray to bail them out, in the end. “Alright. We’ll go together.”

He grinned back at her, squeezing her hand in his. “I like the sound of that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How about that McCree short, eh? Sorry for the delay posting this: my grandad passed away and then I had to re-write a couple of bit for y'all based on all that tasty, tasty new LORE! Woo! Anyway, enjoy, be back soon with the next chapter.


	14. A Lonesome Star in a Bitter Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bounties are hunted, and a few boots drop, as it were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given a lot of writing time (mostly on a plane), this chapter came rather quickly. Enjoy, loves. <3

“You heard there might be a bounty hunter around here and your first thought was _let’s go check this out_?” Brigitte demanded in a fierce whisper. 

He had waited to tell her this, of course, until they were outside the old abandoned warehouse, Brigitte waiting while he picked the lock. She’d offered to smash it in with her hammer but he’d pointed out what a noise that would make, she’d questioned why that was a problem and, well. By then it was far too late to turn back, especially since she wouldn’t turn back without him.

He’d made short work of the lock, and closed the door behind him once they were both in, shutting them in the deep dim of the building. They stood for a moment, listening to the sound of an empty building. 

Their gazes flicked to each other at the sound of footsteps somewhere, then the sound of a weapon being loaded. Maybe not so empty after all.

He looked back at her, uncertainty in his eyes. This was uncharted territory, and something weird was definitely going on here. “Stay close.”

For a quick moment she had thought he was going to tell her to stay back, to keep herself safe at his expense--but that wasn’t what they were. And he knew it too. She nodded, readying her shield on her arm and moving up next to him as close as she dared.

She made to raise her shield, but he gestured it down, putting a finger to his lips. Brigitte didn’t like it, was obviously uncomfortable with not having her shield up and glowing between them and the rest of the world. But then, he had turned his own body armor’s defensive systems off, with no steady glow from under his poncho. They moved on.

Crates, dust, sand, a faint musty smell from somewhere nearby, like fabric left too long in a box in less than ideal conditions. The two crept forward, on a lookout for the other occupant--or occupants--of the warehouse.

The first shot thumped into a crate, the second ricocheting off of her armor into the darkness.

With a yelp, Brigitte brought her shield up, activating it in the same motion, swiveling to put it between herself and where the shots had come from, bracing for the next one.

Nothing came.

Jesse’s hand was on his revolver, ready to draw, while his left was on her shoulder, steadying, making sure she knew he was there, behind the shield, protected. As silence reigned for a moment more, McCree relaxed fractionally. “Huh. Warning shots.”

“Warning shots?!” She stared at him over her shoulder, disbelief clear in her tone. “They seemed pretty dangerous to me.”

“That’s how you know it's a good warning.”

It was enough of a fair point that she couldn’t immediately come up with a retort, so she merely braced against her activated shield with a grump that, Jesse McCree having a few brains in his head, absolutely did not point out sounded a bit like her father. “Fine. So it’s a warning. Can we leave now?”

McCree desperately wanted to, but something wasn’t right. The warning clearly couldn’t have come from a run-of-the-mill bounty hunter--they would shoot to kill, and those shots hadn’t been followed by the desperate spray of bullets the merely bad-at-aiming would fling at a target. “Naw, there’s something else going on here.”

The next two shots pinged off the activated shield, McCree ducking behind it. The third shot, oddly, stuck. Brigitte stared at it through the glowing field between the metal parts. “What the…”

There was another lull, no more bullets, no movement, nothing. And then a figure dropped down to the floor in front of the two of them.

McCree immediately drew and aimed his pistol at the figure, but the hands were up in a gesture of truce--and in one there was a canister or, more sinisterly, a grenade, so he held on firing. Still a finger on the trigger, still aimed and concentrated on this figure, but not firing just yet. 

There was a tense moment of standoff as the three stood there. Then, in accented English, the new arrival spoke. “Well, are you going to shoot or not?”

“That depends,” McCree responded immediately. Then something about the mask, the outfit, the gun, all of it clicked. “Are you gonna give me a reason, Shrike?”

Another long, tense moment. The figure appeared to look between the two of them, McCree and Brigitte, then spoke. “Are you two by yourself? You are all Overwatch has sent?”

Brigitte spoke up, not deactivating her shield. “Overwatch didn’t send us.” It was, in all the technicalities, true. No need to mention their pilot, back at the small transport plane.

“Pity.” Not seeming to register Brigitte’s surprised glance back toward McCree, Shrike lowered the canister in their hand, fitting it back to their belt under the long black coat. The figure approached, the rifle still slung over their back.

McCree eased his finger off the trigger, placing his left hand on Brigitte’s shoulder to steady her. Her shield was still up, but she wasn’t making any motion toward the approaching figure. “What… what the hell is it that you want?” This was not going how meetings with bounty hunters usually went. Though he did his best to avoid them in general.

The figure brought their wrist up, a small display there. “Jesse McCree. A sixty million dollar bounty in under a decade is quite impressive.”

It was only McCree’s hand on her shoulder that stopped Brigitte from slamming into the bounty hunter with her shield. “I guess so. What’s it to you?” He drawled.

But Shrike ignored the question, turning the mask’s face substitute toward Brigitte. “But you… You carry the same arms as Reinhardt Wilhelm.” 

To Brigitte’s ear, there was the faintest tone of accusation. She briefly wondered if there was any kind of bounty on her head too. “I’m Brigitte Lindholm, squire to Reinhardt Wilhelm. And member of Overwatch.” To her credit, there was only the slightest pause before the last declaration.

“Lindholm?” Shrike repeated, then laughed. Brigitte glanced back at Jesse again, confused. But he didn’t know, and Shrike was not forthcoming. 

There was another pause, slightly awkward, as the three of them stood around and decided not to try and kill each other today. “So, um.” Brigitte was the one to break the silence, looking from Shrike to McCree and back. “What happens now?”

Shrike put their hands up in response, no grenade-like object in it this time. “Are you going back to headquarters? In that case, I surrender.”

McCree and Brigitte stared, Brigitte finally lowering her shield and looking to Jesse in confusion. After a bit of a moment, McCree shrugged, finally dropping his hand from Brigitte’s shoulder. “I guess you can come along if you like… but what’s to say you ain’t gonna just try and off us on the way back?”

Something about the bounty hunter, something in their stance or mannerisms maybe, some small thing was bothering him, but he couldn't place a finger on it. Shrike shrugged. “You don’t. But I have information on what is happening with the Deadlock Gang. And, if it matters, I give my word, on my honor I will not try and hurt you before we reach the base.”

Honor was a word with connotations for both Brigitte and McCree, and they both certainly knew that about the other. Brigitte finally depowered her shield, looking to McCree. “I suppose that’s all we can ask.”

McCree was more uncertain, remembering the last person who had wandered on to base to join the rest of them and his mixed feelings on her. But Moira was a known entity, and this Shrike person, less so. Well, life never came without a little risk, he supposed. “Alright. I guess we’re going back.”

\--

The setup was reminiscent of what they had utilized when Moira had shown up unexpectedly, a room, a connection, audio and video, the stranger, still armed but confined, sitting waiting to be interviewed. They had refused to take their mask off, thus far, and so sat with it on. 

Brigitte had bent to pick up the projectile that had lodged itself in her shield earlier. It had fallen out when she’d deactivated the shield, and she wanted a closer look at it. Neither Jesse nor the bounty hunter, the one he’d called Shrike, seemed to notice. She’d examined it on the flight back, twirling it around in gloved fingers, pondering it. There was something strangely familiar about it, like she’d seen one before, or the schematics for one or something. A delivery system for some sort of serum or potion, sizzled out against her shield when it had been fired. 

She looked up at the sound of footsteps toward the outer room, then stood to be engulfed in Reinhardt’s hug. Her father followed as soon as Reinhardt let go, briefly squeezing her before letting her go, patting her heavily on the arm. “There you are, safe and sound.”

“I’m _fine_ , Pappa.” 

“See?” Reinhardt patted Torbjorn on the back. It hardly budged the stout little man. “I told you’d she’d be perfectly safe!”

Brigitte rolled her eyes fondly as the two bickered for a moment. Then Reinhardt caught sight of the monitor. “Is that our visitor?”

On the screen, the bounty hunter was sitting comfortably, mask still on, and had even leaned their chair back to prop feet on the table. They did not appear to have a care in the world. “Shrike, Jesse said,” Brigitte answered. 

Reinhardt was staring, and she couldn’t read his expression. “And where on earth did she get that rifle?”

Brigitte started, peered closer at the screen. “Um. I don’t know. It fired some sort of dart thing--Reinhardt!” She surged forward, trying to stop the mountain of a man moving toward the door. “You can’t go in there!”

He stopped and looked down at her. Then, very gently, he removed her hand from his arm. Before she could lodge another protest or impede him further, he strode toward the door, yanking it open and shutting it behind him.

Brigitte rushed to the monitor, followed by her father. Winston and Jesse had just returned as Reinhardt began speaking, and she waved them to a hush. 

The mask tilted up to look at the large man. “Reinhardt Wilhelm.”

“Where did you get that gun?” Reinhardt’s tone was colder than Brigitte had ever heard it before. She’d heard him firey with rage, deep with grief, bright with mirth, but this was arctic, a reminder that before he had been anything else he had been a soldier.

“This old thing?” Shrike gestured at the weapon slung over the back of the chair with a gloved hand. “I’ve had it for a very long time.”

If anything, his attitude grew colder at this response. On the other end of the monitor, Brigitte shivered. “Where. Did you get it?” His tone brooked no nonsense.

There was a long, long moment where Shrike wasn’t answering and Reinhardt was unyielding. Then, through the voice-changer built into the mask, there was a long, heavy sigh, full of emotions the alteration couldn’t hope to interpret. 

Slowly, the figure reached up, pushing off the hood, revealing white hair. Reinhardt stood silent, no one in the outer room moved, watching over the monitor. Then, with a deep breath, Shrike pushed the mask up.

Shrike was a woman, brown skin, an eyepatch covering her right eye, a tattoo outlining her left. She pulled the mask off, the lights in the HUD flickering out as she laid it on the table in front of her. “I have had that rifle for a very, very long time.” Her voice was tired, worn, flecked with the accent of her native Arabic. 

“Ana?” All of the cold had rushed out of Reinhardt, all his strength, leaving nothing but hushed astonishment. His hand gripped the back of the chair on his side of the table. “How can this be?”

She looked up at him, expression soft. “Hello, Reinhardt.”

Over the feed, everyone in the room stood stunned, staring at the screen at this revelation. 

“I thought you were dead.” The pain in Reinhardt’s voice was palpable, and Brigitte’s breath caught in her throat. She reached a hand back blindly behind her, and after a hesitation Jesse caught it, lacing his fingers with her own, grounding her. 

Ana Amari looked away from Reinhardt, looked down, sadness in her own voice. “I’m sorry. I- I needed time. After everything that happened?”

Reinhardt pulled out the chair opposite her, practically collapsing into it. Hands limp in his lap, none of the people in the other room could see his expression, but it seemed he simply stared at her. “I can hardly believe it.” 

The only answer Ana had to that was a shrug. The two sat in silence for a while longer.

Out in the other room, stunned silence finally erupted into noise, everyone trying to speak at once. 

“Is that really-”

“I _thought_ I recognized--”

“Are we sure--”

It was Winston’s roar and the stunned reaction to it that silenced the group gathered there. Unnoticed by those in the outer room, both Ana and Reinhardt looked to the outer door. It seemed the room wasn’t that sound-proof after all.

“Everyone settle down!” Winston’s was the loudest voice of reason and a quiet fell over the room.

Unnoticed over the monitor, Ana stood, slinging the biotic rifle over her shoulder, and pushed past Reinhardt toward the door, giving him a nod as she went. There was a slight hesitation, and he nodded back, even holding the door open for her.

To her credit, Ana seemed only momentarily taken aback by the attention focused on her as she entered, Reinhardt backing her up. She raised a still-gloved hand in greeting. “Hello.”

The babble of questions welled up again, Ana looking from face to face as she was bombarded. Even Winston got in on it this time. Finally, Reinhardt stepped in, holding up his hands. “Alright, alright, settle down, settle down. One at a time.”

“Actually,” Ana laid a hand on his arm to stop him. “Why don't we go to the mess. I could use a cup of tea, and I think some others might too. You can use the time to think of what you really want to ask.”

Reinhardt gestured her out the door with enough of a quelling look to keep the rest of them in there a moment longer.

Brigitte sagged against the desk, letting some of the others leave first, including her father. McCree noticed, leaning his hip against the table next to her. “Hey, how you doing?”

She huffed a laugh, looking up at. “I hardly know. Ana Amari? Back from the dead?” She shook her head at the door where everyone had gone out but them. 

“Pretty incredible, I tell ya.” He nodded slowly, then breathed out a sigh.

He was about to push away from the desk and suggest they follow the crowd when his handheld buzzed. There wasn’t anyone he could think of who would be sending him anything… unless the group that had left had noticed their absence already.

Pulling it out, he grimaced when he saw the contact. Brigitte made a questioning noise and he tilted the device to show her. Moira. Brigitte echoed his face. “What does she want?”

“Only one way to find out.” With that, he opened it. Short, terse, exactly her style. Information that the Deadlock Gang was, yes, moving, yes. Attempted breakout, apparently. McCree sighed deeply, a sigh Brigitte could tell had history behind it.

“Who’s Ashe?” She asked, having read the name in the latest missive. 

McCree paused long enough for Brigitte to look at him curiously, quirking an eyebrow. “She’s an old friend. Well.” He qualified without actually explaining anything. 

Brigitte frowned. There was clearly history here, and she didn’t want to pry too much, but she didn’t like being in the dark. Especially when it came to situations that might affect her. “Well?”

Jesse shut off the device, stowing it and looking down at the floor. She couldn’t see his eyes past his hat at this angle. “She runs the Deadlock Rebels these days, far as I’ve heard. Or did, before she and I had a little run-in.”

A small silence. “The Deadlock Gang… your old gang?” She asked tentatively. She knew about pasts you’d rather not talk about. She knew Jesse had been trying to atone for his for many years now. She didn’t know the details.

“I ran with ‘em.” He paused, sinking deeper into his poncho and the shadow of his hat as if he could hide away from her gaze. “ _We_ ran with ‘em.”

Brigitte suddenly realized they might not be talking about anything as simple as old friends and enemies. “You--you two were a we, huh?” 

He didn’t answer her with words, but with the equivocating shrug of his shoulders, the way he seemed to go still and quiet, waiting for her reaction. A reaction she did have to think about for a moment or two. 

“That was a long time ago, right? Way before--before you joined up here the first time?” Brigitte asked slowly. It was understood that she meant Blackwatch, of course, but that was the polite euphemism she was going to go with for now. 

He gave a half-nod, still waiting for the full brunt of her reaction. “Right.”

“Well,” Brigitte shoved herself out from the desk where they were both leaning, clapping her hands together, then taking up a stance in front of him. “I’ve had a few ex-girlfriends in my time, but not one in prison. What do you say we make sure she stays there, hm?”

McCree looked up at her, a little surprised that _this_ was the particular boot to drop. “Uh, ex-girlfriends?” Was the only thing he could could come up with at that moment, the rest of his brain processing events as fast as possible.

Brigitte smirked at him. “I think that’s a conversation for another time.” She offered her still-gloved hand to him to help him up. “Come on, let’s go find the others and let them know.”

Still a little stunned and in awe of his deadly, beautiful Copperhead--and the fact that he got to think of her as his--he took her hand and let himself be led.


	15. Ghosts That We Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a plan finally goes off, and everything goes wrong.

“What we know is this.” McCree had given Winston the job of briefing the team who had volunteered for this their briefing, slapped together and piecemeal as things were. “The Deadlock Rebels, a gang in the American Southwest involved in smuggling, gun-running, robberies, and other crimes, is stock-piling explosives.”

An image of Ashe appeared on the screen, evidently taken from a wanted poster. McCree was shaking his head, and Brigitte couldn’t read his expression. Winston continued. “Up until recently, the gang was led by this woman, Ashe. She was captured and jailed after a failed heist, along with most of the gang.”

A surveillance photo Winston had gotten ahold of, trucks moving into a warehouse. “We believe what is left of the Deadlock Rebels are going to attempt a breakout of Ashe, before she is transferred to a more secure Helix facility.”

McCree spoke up briefly. “And B.O.B., don’t forget about him. Ashe without B.O.B. is like,” he cast about for a metaphor. “Like you without your turrets,” he nodded at Torbjorn. As often as he’d heard the Swede talk about his turrets like they were his pets or friends or children, it was somewhere in the ballpark.

Winston nodded understanding, and continued. “It appears all that is currently left of B.O.B. is the head with its central processing unit, but a new body can always be constructed.”

“So what’re we thinking, big guy?” Lena piped up. 

It was McCree who answered though. “I saw we nip this thing in the bud. They’re getting ready to move out, we stop ‘em before they’re ready, send ‘em all off to prison too.”

Winston gestured in agreement. “Minimize casualties, collateral damage, all of that.”

“Great.” Tracer stood, planting hands on the table. “When do we move out?”

Brigitte and McCree exchanged an uneasy look, but it was McCree who finally told her. “As soon as Moira shows up.”

Tracer stared back at him. “Her? We’re not bringing her along, are we?”

McCree shrugged, just as uncomfortable with the notion as Tracer was, if not more. “She’s got information and, what’s more, she’s got healing.” 

There was muttered agreement at this fact, though it wa still unhappy in note. Moira hadn’t endeared herself to many here, after the recall. Nor before it, to be perfectly frank, but then that was the past. Angela’s absence from the room, along with Genji’s, was weighing on all of them as well. But it was generally agreed that now would be the best time to move. As long as Genji and Mercy were engaged in their mission, the team agreed they were better served there.

Reinhardt, for his part, had gone off with Ana to talk, he told Brigitte. Brigitte had reassured him that it was fine, that it wouldn’t be a big deal, and she’d stay out of trouble while he was busy. No one was inclined to ask Ana to put her life on the line again, not when her return was so tenuous and her feelings about Overwatch, both old and new, so mixed.

So that meant making compromises not everyone was entirely happy with, even as they accepted them.

“So it’s gonna be me, you,” McCree counted off, pointing at Tracer. “Brigitte, and Moira. Team of four, light and quick, we stop ‘em and let the local tin stars mop things up.”

It was a solid plan, and probably the best they were going to put together, but the agreement around the table was still uneasy. Despite this, McCree stood, hooking his thumbs in his belt and adopting a confident stance. “Well then, we best get a move on.”

Soon, it was Winston, McCree, and Brigitte left in the small room. “McCree,” Winston’s voice was low. “Can I, uh, speak to you? Alone?” He cast an apologetic look at Brigitte. 

Brigitte looked to Jesse, to make sure he was alright with this, and at his nod, agreed. “I’ll be getting my things patched up and ready to go.”

“I suppose.” He could guess where this conversation was going. He squeezed Brigitte’s hand as she went past him, then settled into a stance leaning against the table, arms crossed.

Winston appeared to go through several opening gambits in his head before deciding on one. “Are you sure this is the best idea?”

A shrug. “If we don’t stop ‘em, who’s gonna? Ashe is gonna get out, gonna hurt more people--probably while she’s getting out--and cause even more chaos than the old gang is already causing now.”

“I know, I know, but.” A heavy sigh. “I don’t think you should go.”

McCree started at him for a moment, then shook his head. “C’mon, Winston, you can’t just expect me to sit here with my thumb up my ass while my friends go out there and put their asses on the line cleaning up _my_ mess.”

Winston gave him an ironic look. “As far as I can tell, it’s not your mess, even if you did know these people once.”

“You know what I mean.” Jesse shot back.

A sigh from Winston. “I do. And if I had any other choice I wouldn’t even think of letting you go out there.”

There was a thick silence in the room before McCree waded in cautiously. “Y’know… When we all came back, it was cuz of you. You sent that recall message, and we’ve all been following you since.”

It was a roundabout sort of mutiny, if it could even be called that, given the unofficial nature of, well, just about everything around here. But McCree had enough respect for Winston that he still hesitated in suggesting it. He was a friend, after all, if nothing else. 

Winston, of course, immediately grasped the bent of this, and shook his head with another sigh. “I can’t stop you from going along, but I still think it’s a bad idea.”

“I know.” McCree laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “And you’re probably right.”

“But you’re still going.” It wasn’t even a question.

“I’m still going.”

\--

“Something’s not right here,” Tracer murmured as she surveyed the landing site she’d intended to go for. It was a rock outcropping just far enough from the warehouse that they might not be heard, especially over the sounds of trucks or other moving equipment, but not so far that they couldn’t make a quick escape if they needed to. Whatever it was though, she couldn’t quite place a finger on it, peering out the windscreen of the Aurora. 

Brigitte had evidently overheard, having come up so as not to deal with the frosty silence between McCree and Moira anymore. “What do you mean?”

But Tracer could only shake her head in answer. Slowly, she set the craft down in a flat place between two rock outcroppings, powered down the engines, and waited. The other three in the ship waited too. 

Nothing came. No shots fired, no shouts of surprise, nothing. Warily, Tracer hit the release for the door controls, and nodded down to McCree, waiting for her ok. The door slid up on sand-blown grit and dirt, and a stray saguaro cactus, holding its limbs up to the merciless sun above.

After a moment passed with no ambushes, Tracer nodded to Brigitte, who led the way out into the open. She had her armor and a shield, after all, and could handle whatever was thrown at her. The rest followed behind, the loudest footfalls Brigitte’s own and the subtle jingle of Jesse’s spurs. 

The parking lot and loading zone of the warehouse was empty except for one hovervan, its doors closed, windows tinted black. The hot sun baked the cracked pavement but it didn’t look like there was any living thing out there. “You’re sure this is the right place?” Tracer whispered to the others.

“So my sources told me.” Moira’s voice was low, calm, self-assured. 

Brigitte and McCree exchanged a brief look at that, but let it go. The group cross the lot to the loading dock, then to the access door, expecting, but not encountering, an attack. Brigitte hefted her hammer with a silent question, and Tracer nodded. With a great whack she struck the handle and lock of the door, and it clanged to the ground with a clatter.

Everyone held their breath for a moment, but still there was nothing. Slowly, Brigitte put her hand on the door then, with a silent three-count, slammed it open, jumping through with her shield up and active. 

It took a moment for people’s eyes to adjust, but gradually they did. A warehouse, plenty of crates around, and there, in the middle, leaning against a low stack, was a man, smoking a cigarette, an Omnic behind him holding a rather large shotgun. 

McCree started forward, but Brigitte got in his way. He looked at her, a question in his eyes. “If you kill him now,” she answered him, “We won’t find out what’s going on.”

He hated to wait, but he knew she had a good point. The man in question was watching them, waiting for them to come to this conclusion as he already had. 

Finally, he spoke. “Jesse McCree. It’s been a long time.”

“Lorenzo,” McCree fired back immediately. “Not nearly long enough.”

The man, still appearing unconcerned, threw a look at the Omnic who cocked the shotgun, then rested it against his shoulder. “I know what you think you’re here for.”

McCree gave a laugh he wasn’t feeling. “Oh, that so?” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tracer ease off to the side, out of view of the two in the center of the warehouse. 

“You think you’re here to stop us breaking out Ashe. Which yeah,” he exchanged another look with the Omnic--D.A.V.E., that was it, the name finally coming to McCree. “We’re gonna get her out, but you’re gonna help us.”

Before he could do more than scoff, Brigitte jumped in. “That’s ridiculous, he’s not going to help you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you may think that. He may think that too.” Lorenzo’s congenial manner was undisturbed. He crushed the cigarette under his booted heel, then pulled a slim device from his pocket. At that exact same moment, the group heard the cock of guns all around them, unseen from the shadows. 

McCree swore under his breath. Tracer was looking up from a crate with the top ajar, face pale and worried. Even Moira was looking concerned. 

Lorenzo continued. “The thing is, we weren’t gonna wait to see which way the cat jumped and take a gamble on y’all showing up to ruin things. So we’ve wired this town with explosives.” He hefted the detonator a little to emphasize. 

D.A.V.E. made a short, protesting noise, and Lorenzo tilted his head to allow it. “Well, right, not the whole thing. May be a small town but there’s still a school house, and even a little ol’ hospital. And ol’ Davey here volunteered himself to be a deadman switch, just in case.” 

It was Moira who spoke up next. “So what is it that you’re wanting?” Her voice was full of contempt. 

Lorenzo shrugged. “Simple. McCree surrenders and comes with us, we leave and set a 10 minute timer on the bombs. Should be more than enough time for you lot to round ‘em up and disable them.”

“Or what?” Brigitte demanded.

“Or,” Lorenzo drawled out the word, reminding her uncannily of McCree when he was in a teasing mood. “You don’t, and we blow ‘em now, and all those kiddies and sick folks go up in smoke. 

\--

Moira was fairly certain she’d never seen a more idiotic group of lunatics and absolute muppets than the Deadlock Rebels, the misfits currently masquerading as Overwatch not excepted. But this plan was actually working, and could even be said to have a hint of cleverness. 

Of course, she had worked hard to make it that way, so it was satisfying that it was unfolding as planned, so far. She had said yes to the floated suggestion that, since she was the one that brought the intel, she should go along with the group to check it out. The fact that it allowed her to make sure things ran on rails--so to speak--was the hidden bonus for her. 

Lorenzo gave his ultimatum and the Overwatch group stared in silence, processing this. She followed Lindholm’s glance at Oxton, making the same calculations over again that they were making for the first time. There was no way for Tracer to find and get to both places _and_ disarm the explosives in time, even if she were able to get out without anyone noticing. 

McCree laughed and shook his head. Moira noted a faintly desperate note to the tone. He knew he was caught well and good. “Damn it all, y’got me.” He holstered his Peacekeeper, and Lindholm turned her eyes to him in horror.

“Jesse, no.”

 _So he’s ‘Jesse’ to you, is he, girl_? Moira noted, not letting her piqued interest show at all on the surface. 

“Bri, I-- I gotta, Copperhead.” The anguish at this choice that wasn’t a choice at all was clear in his voice. The fact that they had progressed to first names and pet names did not escape Moira. McCree was forgetting to hide the emotions on his face, which he was usually not half bad at. 

Moira injected a note of harried worry into her voice, not to rush, no no, never that, just to point out that decisions, well, needed to be made. “McCree, I don’t think your old friends will wait forever for us to make this decision.” And if it meant no one had time to think of a third option, so much the better. 

Indeed, they were looking rather impatient over there, which she knew he had also noted. The Lindholm girl looked angry, desperate, and a little bit afraid--no keeping the emotions off her face, was there? She was as easy to read as an open book. 

“If we go now, if we run,” Oxton’s voice was low, not carrying to those in the center of the room. “Maybe there’s something you could do with your healing and everything?”

Moira’s voice was level, deadly calm. “Even our dear friend Angela would be unable to out-heal such an explosion, especially after the fact.” It was true, pure and simple, and she absolutely did not want to be within a kilometer of any such blast, let alone the center of it. No one needed to know that it had been designed exactly that way, and hadn’t _that_ been a trial and a half, getting the old gang to think in the same direction long enough to come up with a plan that wasn’t completely idiotic. Though, she supposed, they _were_ Jesse’s old co-workers, in a way, so perhaps it made sense.

Lindholm’s shield was still turned toward the enemy, Moira noted. The old man had taught her well. McCree put a hand on her left arm and, rather than hit him with the shield, she deactivated it. “There has to be something--”

“It’s the only way.” He was speaking only to Brigitte now, his good hand curled around her cheek, her mace and shield lowered as she leaned into him, pleading with her eyes.

“I know. I wish--” She stopped herself, shutting her eyes and pressing her lips together for a brief second, leaned into his hand. “I know.”

Moira watched in covert fascination. Was the Lindholm girl going to _cry_? But no, it seemed she had more control over her outward expressions of emotion than that. 

He seemed to hesitate, then murmured something and kissed her, once, long and hard. Before she could catch her breath he had let her go and taken the hat from his own head, jammed it onto hers, and was striding out towards the Deadlock Rebels with his hands held up in the air in the universal gesture of surrender. 

There was a moment when Moira thought McCree was going to ruin it all, when the gun was plucked from its holster by D.A.V.E. as McCree passed him. The far door of the warehouse opened, light flooding in.There was a lift van there, maybe even the same one they had seen before, door open and waiting.

Up the ramp into the lift van, where another Omnic kicked McCree’s legs out from under him, driving him to his knees. Brigitte gave a wordless cry that was louder than any noise McCree might have made and Tracer had to surge forward to put a quelling hand on her arm. 

Lorenzo was the last into the van, waving the control at them, then twisting a switch on the side. “Y’all’ve got ten minutes! Better get running!” He shouted, before slamming the door shut.

Brigitte surged forward, but the van took off, faster than failsafes should allow on an unmodified vehicle, and they were gone. 

Tracer was off before the other two could speak, shouting over her shoulder that she was going to the school first, and she’d contact them.

Moira placed a long-nailed hand on Lindholm’s shoulder, almost gently. She started at the touch anyway. “Come, we’ve a town to save.”

The girl had tears in her eyes, but hadn’t let them spill, and there was a steely determination there as well. It was something Moira would almost admire if it weren’t so desperately naive and likely to get her killed. “Right. Let’s go.”

Moira followed, playing the savior role to the hilt, as the girl spun on her heel and ran for the exit.


	16. Your Arms Around Something Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some situations are diffused, others discussed, and a rescue is contemplated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliffhanger last time--Aren't serialized stories fun?

“The second one’s here! Behind the clinic!” Brigitte shouted into her comms. Seconds later, Tracer rounded the corner, dust kicking up in puffs under her feet, practically screeching to a halt as she too spotted the device, with its holo-clock ticking away. Three minutes left, it said. 

“On my way,” Moira’s voice came over the comms, and, arriving after Tracer, she was there. Brigitte nodded at her, then knelt when she received a nod in return. As with the previous device, this one was rather simple, but deadly enough. 

Brigitte’s deft fingers sorted through the connections, her engineer’s mind working through the problem the bomb presented, finding a solution that wouldn’t kill them all--or anyone around them. “There it is--”

Despite her knowledge, the three still tensed as she snapped a wire and yanked on another one, and the holo-clock was shutting down, its power source--and that of the detonator--disconnected.

Breathing out a massive sigh of relief, Brigitte collapsed first on her backside, then to her back, putting a gloved hand over her sweaty, gritty face as she simply breathed for a moment. She felt Tracer plop down next to her and, when she finally looked, Moira was standing with her hands on her knees, even the inestimable scientist winded from the rush.

After a moment’s respite and despite the protesting of her muscles, Brigitte pushed herself back upright, the adrenaline and terror beginning to fade to a heavy dread. They had been suspicious as they had run off--what if there was no bomb after all? Then the terror upon finding the first, Brigitte’s shaking fingers as she realized she could figure the mechanism out, but she was the only one and, if she messed it up, they would all die. 

Short-lived relief as she managed to disarm the first bomb, then running off to find the second one, more terror, more confusion, more running.

Now, Brigitte shoved herself upright, then to a standing position. She swayed a moment, light-headed suddenly, then straightened. “C’mon. We need to get back to the ship.”

“Right.” She didn’t see Tracer get up--she went from sitting to standing in a flash. 

Moira had regained her composure, though the normal slight smirk of an expression that she usually carried was gone now. She made a gesture to the other two women to lead the way, and Brigitte headed back towards the ship with a will.

\--

McCree didn’t resist as his hands were roughly yanked behind him, then cuffed together. D.A.V.E., with what McCree fancied was something of an apologetic look in his optics, covered McCree’s head with a black cloth bag that smelled of dust and old grain. He was glad he’d given Brigitte his hat, and that he wasn’t claustrophobic, these days.

He subtly tested the material cuffing his hands, rotating his left hand in the binds. He could possibly break it with his mechanical arm, but it would mean breaking, possibly irreparably, his right hand. Which McCree absolutely would not do. He knew some damn good doctors, but that was his shooting hand and he wouldn’t risk it.

Without wheels on the ground McCree couldn’t count turns or grooves in the road, but he could tell they were going fast, judging by the hum of the engines. And probably higher than legal limits said, if he was any judge.

Not terribly far though, as the whine of the engines changed, then the noise increased as the van began to descend, landing… somewhere. “Thank goodness,” McCree said, voice muffled through the fabric. “My knees were beginning to hurt.”

“Shaddup.” Lorenzo’s voice, behind him, a little to the left. It was an Omnic though--probably D.A.V.E.-- that grabbed his bound wrists, yanking him to his feet. Unseen, under the fabric, McCree grimaced at the pins and needles that ran through his legs as he was led, staggering, out of the van. 

There was no transition from sunlight to shadow, so McCree assumed it was somewhere enclosed. Somewhere underground, judging by the echoes, the subtle coolness of the air against his skin. Underground or at least inside rock, definitely. The opening of a door, slammed behind them as he was hurried along what seemed to be a corridor. Echoing voices, something clanking, all under the shuffling of their feet. Another metal door that he was roughly shoved through, stumbling away from his captors, though he managed to keep his feet this time, the jingle of his spurs echoing weirdly in the space. 

The shove caught him off-guard, and he fell into the chair sideways, almost tipping it over before he was able to rebalance himself. A short moment passed before the bag was ripped off of his head.

He slouched in the chair insouciantly, legs spread, looking up at Lorenzo and D.A.V.E. with the hood in his hands. “And you didn’t even buy me dinner first.”

The look that Lorenzo gave him was, at one and the same time, unsurprised at his behavior, and deeply annoyed. “God, you haven’t changed a fucking bit, have you McCree?”

He shrugged as best he could with his arms behind him. “You have. You leading this band of fools now then?”

D.A.V.E. and Lorenzo exchanged a look that McCree couldn’t quite interpret. Lorenzo fingered the gun--McCree’s gun--in its holster. “Not for long. Once we trade you for Ashe, we’re gonna be back in business.”

McCree stared for a long, incredulous moment, then burst out into laughter, nearly doubling over in the rickety chair he’d been placed in. Once or twice he started to speak, then immediately burst into more gales of laughter, which trailed off into a cough, then to a small ‘whoop’ as he caught his breath. “You think you’re gonna trade me for her?!” He finally managed to get out.

Lorenzo was stubborn despite any misgivings McCree’s reaction might plant in his mind. He always was like that, McCree reminded himself, thinking of one particular argument where Ashe had nearly had B.O.B. throw Lorenzo bodily from the room until he would change his damn mind to face the facts. “S’right.”

“Well, fortunately for you,” he leaned forward in the chair, rotating his wrists around in the cuffing material. “My friends are gonna be here to rescue me before y’all can even spit in Ashe’s direction.”

A sneer was the only answer he got from Lorenzo, who stomped toward the door, gesturing D.A.V.E. along in his wake. Lorenzo slammed the door behind him, and McCree was left in the echoing, empty room.

\--

Moira paused at the door of the ship, the sound of sirens in the distance finally filtering up as the proper authorities arrived. “Perhaps I should stay, deal with the legalities.” Tracer and Brigitte exchanged a look. “I am, after all, a government minister, and not overtly involved in anything regarding, well.” She waved a hand at the Overwatch logo still on the side of the Aurora.

“Alright,” Tracer agreed, somewhat reluctant, but clearly willing to let the doctor deal with things that Tracer definitely wouldn’t want to right now. Brigitte gave an only-slightly-begrudging nod of respect to Moira before making her way into the ship, ready to be gone.

Moira waved, and disappeared back towards the sound of sirens, the bright sunlight swallowing her up, and Tracer hurried to the helm of the small craft.

\--

 _Gone gone gone gone_. It was like a drumbeat in her mind, keeping pace with the beat of her heart. Brigitte pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, willing the tears to stay back, not now, not yet. She had almost lost it in front of Moira and, more than anything, she didn’t want to do that. Moira had been helpful with the information and all, but she was still, in the end, the Doctor O’Deorain that had haunted the fringes of her childhood.

“We’ve got to get him back,” she muttered into her hands, even Tracer too far away to hear it. “We’ve got to.”

She wasn’t sure how long she sat like that, mace and shield at her feet, but she started at the feel of a hand on her shoulder. Lena was looking at her, worry written clear all over her face. “I let everyone at the Watchpoint know what happened. They’ve already started working on a plan.” 

Brigitte blinked up at Lena, then wiped a hand across her face again. “Ah? Good, good.”

She made to stand, and Lena hurried on with her words. “I mean, it’s alright, you don’t need to-- you can wait until we get back, to help.” Brigitte stared at her. “They understand, y’know. Might be hard…” She trailed off.

Brigitte was shaking her head. “No. No I want to-- I _need_ to be helping,” she insisted. She strode toward the cockpit, then paused, a hand on the wall to brace herself. 

Lena approached, laying a hand on her armored shoulder again. “I know, love. You go take off the big pieces of your armor and join me up in the co-pilot’s chair when you’re done, alright? We’ll bring your boy back home. I promise.” 

Brigitte even managed a ghost of a smile as she turned and went to take Lena’s advice.

Using the small, on-board restroom, Brigitte had splashed her sweaty, blotched face with cool water. All she spared was a moment to herself. She couldn’t fall apart yet, she needed to rescue Jesse. She had to.

By the time she went out to join Tracer, she was composed and ready to get to work. Tracer had done a fair job bringing the Watchpoint up to speed on everything that had happened. All Brigitte was called upon for was a few clarifying details, including Moira’s contribution to the incident. 

It was only once they’d landed, after Tracer had settled the small ship into its berth in the hangar, that Lena had hung up the headset and caught Brigitte’s arm before she descended the stairs. “You alright love?”

Brigitte was about to smile, to reassure her happy-go-lucky friend that she’d be fine, even if she wasn’t now. But something about her tone--the fact that it was Lena, not Tracer, asking her--gave her pause. “I’m--” She paused, struggling to put all of her emotions into words.

But she couldn’t find them, settling for a shrug instead. Lena understood anyway, giving her a brief squeeze on the arm. She was even good enough to lead the way down the ramp ahead of Brigitte. 

Winston greeted Lena, throwing a worried glance at Brigitte but not prying into her serenity. The hangar was mostly empty other than Reinhardt, taking up his usual amount of space even without his armor, and there in the background, Ana. 

Brigitte, unable to quite summon up a smile for Lena in the ship earlier, managed to bring one up to her face for her mentor and his old friend. “Hey.”

He eyed her, obviously (could he be any other way) concerned and wanting to help. “Brigitte...”

“It’s fine. No one’s hurt, and-- and we’ll go and get him and everything will be fine.” She got all the way to the hallway with her forced serenity and her duffle bag and her denial before Reinhardt’s voice stopped her in her tracks. “Brigitte!”

She didn’t want to fall apart in front of him, but in front of others here on the base would be even worse. Ana was old, old Overwatch, had always been among the slightly more distant figures in her life. Practically a legend, really. Brigitte really didn’t want to go to pieces in front of a legendary person such as that. 

_But Reinhardt?_

She held her ground, clenching her fist around the bag holding the heaviest gear, refusing to turn back to look at him in the hallway behind her. She knew she’d lose it then. “It’s--it’ll be fine.” Her voice was tight, rigid with emotion.

“I know that I taught you that lying is not an honorable thing to do.” His even, steady voice carried to her and she scrunched her eyes shut. “Even when it is to your own self.”

The thud of her equipment bag barely registered in her ears as she dropped it and fled to the safety of Reinhardt’s arms. He wrapped his arms around her, even her and her big frame, folding her in the safety and sense of home there.

He let her weep, there in the solitude of the corridor and the muffling comfort of his arms, for a long moment. When her sobs subsided to long gasps, then (slightly embarrassed, though there was no one but family to witness) deep, trying-to-be-calm breaths, he let her go, keeping a steadying hand on her shoulder. 

Brigitte looked up at him--one of the few men she could look up to in both the physical and literal sense--and sniffed, swiping the heel of her hand beneath her eyes. “We’re-- we’re gonna get him back. ...Right?”

One of Reinhardt’s hands had always been enough to engulf her entire head, no matter how big she had grown over the decades. “We will go to the very bounds of duty and honor to get him back, I promise you.”

With Reinhardt an oath of that nature, which would sound florid and ridiculous coming from anyone else, was sincere and true. Brigitte nodded, and sniffled, and squared her shoulders again. 

He nodded back. “Let us retrieve our lost boy.”

\--

They’d all gathered in the briefing room, after Brigitte had taken a few moments to collect herself.

“Do we have any idea where he is? We saw the direction the van flew off, and McCree had his comm in…” Lena asked.

Athena chimed in at this question. “As of my last reading, the comm unit for Agent McCree was functioning and transmitting vital signs.” The AI left out the obvious signs of distress that had been indicated by the readings, as these could fairly reasonably be sussed out by the display, and were within normal mission parameters at that.

“Why can’t we just go to where the signal disappeared? Follow from there?” Torbjorn asked, pragmatically. 

Winston sighed, bringing up a topographic map of the area. “Unfortunately, we know where they went in, but that’s about it. This is an old, old mining region. Two centuries worth of mines that have been created, exploited, abandoned, repurposed…” A series of dots across the landscape appeared. “These are known mine entrances, but only the recorded ones. We don’t know if they’re all still there--or if there are any others we don’t know about.”

Mei nodded wearily, taking in the map through the eyes of a climatologist. “Erosion, animals, all sorts of things can create a new opening into old tunnels.”

“Once you get in there,” Winston continued. “It’s a maze of tunnels, some of which have collapsed, others might be flooded, have toxic gases…” He trailed off.

“And one of them has a nest of weapons-smuggling gangsters with a hostage,” Brigitte pointed out, her voice soft.

The group sat in silence for a moment before Lena broke it. “If his comms are still working, is there any way we could, like, boost the signal or something? Even if we’re not able to talk to him, we might be able to find him.”

Winston frowned, considering. “Well. It’s possible. I’d have to look into it,” he replied hesitantly. “But maybe.”

“So what do we do now?” Brigitte finally broached the question haunting the room.

“I get to work,” The scientist answered. “And we wait.”


	17. Even When There is No Star in Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which McCree catches up with some old "friends".
> 
> Warning: There is some amount of violence in this chapter. Just fyi.

“He had a good point,” Lorenzo said, uncertainty written across his features. Even here, where McCree wasn’t around to overhear, he was still hesitant to say the words. “Are we gonna be able to get them to even consider that trade?”

Reaper tilted his head, and--not for the first time--Lorenzo wondered why he even bothered to use video when he was always wearing that damned mask. “You don’t trust me?”

He didn’t, but was smart enough not to say that out loud. “It’s not that, it’s just--”

He was cut off. “We have people on the inside. You’ll get your deal, and your precious leader, as long as you hold up _your_ end of the bargain.”

Lorenzo sighed, since that bargain included not killing McCree like he very much wished that he could. “Yeah, I know, I know. I just hate having to wait to see which way the cat jumps is all.”

“Leave that to me.” Reaper’s tone was cold, brokering no pushback. “You give me a breathing McCree, I’ll get you your deal.”

He would have to leave it to him, Lorenzo supposed. Nothing else for it. “Fine.”

“See you soon.” With those ominous words, Reaper cut the connection, leaving Lorenzo with a headache and a hostage. But at least, he thought as he turned to go, he could take out a few frustrations on the latter.

\--

In the time he’d been left alone McCree had managed to get himself up out of the chair and do a circuit of the room. There wasn’t much to see, just a bunch of roughly-hewn stone, the door of riveted metal he’d been shoved through, a second door across the room with hinges and handle on the outside, and lots and lots of rocks and dust. In the end, he’d settled himself back into the chair to wait, making sure to move around enough to keep from cramping up.

When Lorenzo returned it was without D.A.V.E., McCree was sorry to see. He’d always liked the Omnic, and had hoped, when he didn’t see him on the train heist, that Davey had gotten out of this business. But it seemed like this world sucked everybody back in, in the end.

Lorenzo still had McCree’s Peacekeeper on his own hip, a little awkward in a holster not made for it. He wore it a little self-consciously, to McCree’s eye, proud of a prize he’d stolen instead of won. McCree grinned up at him, an edge of mockery to it. “Nice piece.”

“Thanks,” Lorenzo sneered back, “The guy I got it offa wasn’t appreciating it properly.”

McCree just snorted. It was easy to see that every little thing McCree did was pissing Lorenzo off more and more, a steady simmer of anger and envy he’d only caught glimpses of all those years ago. He’d been there, back then, he vaguely recalled. The group of brats and and bandits that had formed the original Deadlock Rebels hadn’t been that big, when it came down to it. Only a few of them. Besides Ashe, B.O.B., and McCree, just a few others had been there from the very beginning, and Lorenzo had never been one of them.

Lorenzo was one of that second group, the ones that had come on board when the getting started getting good. But he’d always wished he’d been in on that inner cadre. Now, it seemed, was his chance, with Ashe in custody and McCree there in front of him.

So it was only natural that Lorenzo took the opportunity to land a right hook on McCree, jolting him out of the chair and onto the ground, with no chance to catch himself on hands manacled behind his back. 

Lorenzo kicked the chair he’d been sitting in skittering away to land sideways. McCree sat up, spitting dust, grin undimmed. “Same ol’ noodle arms y’got.” 

“Tch.” He was expecting Lorenzo’s kick to the side, but he still went sprawling in the dirt again. He sat up gingerly. He definitely had at least a cracked rib now. Lorenzo was already speaking. “Y’know I heard all ‘bout what you did to Ashe, to land her in that cell.”

McCree smirked up at Lorenzo, not believing for a second he knew the whole story. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Another crack across the face and, for all McCree mocked him for his upper body strength, this one smarted as his lip split. “And heard all about you and your pretending to be some high-falutin’ hero.”

The next blow that McCree was expecting didn’t come, and he looked up to see Lorenzo contemplating him, arms crossed, a pensive look on his face. “Who did you think you were fooling with that damned hero act, McCree?”

He seemed to be waiting for an actual answer. McCree finally shrugged. “Dunno. It was somethin’ to do.” 

Lorenzo snorted. “Yeah, yeah, and look at where it got you.” He gestured around at the dismal room. 

Another shrug. McCree could think of several things outside of this room that made even trying to be a hero worth it, even if he wasn’t ever really good at it. “Not so bad.”

Lorenzo crouched down in front of McCree, examining his face. Lorenzo had never been any good at reading people’s poker faces, but it seemed he’d picked up a little something here and there. He tilted his head, looking like a curious bird, or rattlesnake about to bite. “Right, right…And who was that pretty lil thing you were kissin’ on, hmm?” he asked. He’d seen that farewell, after all, even if at a slight distance. 

“Nunya,” McCree answered immediately, surly. He didn’t want Lorenzo even thinking about Brigitte. 

Lorenzo snorted a laugh. “Nunya business, huh? Yeah, I figured you’d say that. Well. Doesn’t matter.” He stood. “Ashe’ll make quick work of her, if she doesn’t run into us first.” He made a crude gesture showing how figuratively he meant that. McCree sneered in disgust. 

Abruptly Lorenzo seemed to tire of this, striking out with his fist again. McCree, already sitting, didn’t go sprawling this time. Lorenzo stood, giving him another kick to the ribs and moving behind him. McCree definitely heard--and felt--the pop of bone and cartilage with that second kick.

Lorenzo vented a long sigh and McCree froze as he felt the cold press of what was unmistakably the barrel of a gun, his own gun if he wasn’t mistaken, against the back of his head. Everything other injury battering his body already was forgotten as his guts turned to ice. 

“I should just kill you now,” Lorenzo drawled. “After everything you’ve done. It’s not like your bounty says you gotta be alive.”

McCree swallowed thickly, his mouth suddenly dry. He knew exactly what a bullet from close range could do to a human head. At that angle, this close? He’d be lucky if there was enough left to identify him after. But if he was gonna go out, he was going to go out his way, dammit. “Oh yeah? What’s stopping you?” 

A derisive snort of laughter, then a long, long moment. Finally, after a hard shove into the back of his head, the gun was withdrawn and McCree breathed again, cracked ribs announcing their continued existence on the inhale. “An old friend of yours seems to think he’d get more use out of you. Paid us pretty handsomely for the opportunity too.”

As much as he was able, McCree turned to get look at his old gang-mate. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

He wasn’t expecting the whack of the pistol’s hard grip against the side of his head, the decorative spur there digging into his scalp. McCree gritted his teeth at the pain, the nauseating swimming of his head. He could already feel the blood running down his temple.

Lorenzo was putting McCree’s Peacekeeper revolver into his own holster again when he recovered enough to glare at him again. Nothing he could do right now, he reminded himself. _Advantage, find the advantage_. “‘Course, all he said was you had to be breathing, not that you had to be all in one piece.” With that decided, he walked swiftly over to the door, banging on it twice.

It was the unhappiest of reunions. However big this place was, it held others from the gang, and close by too. McCree recognized more than a few faces from unhappier times in that crowd, though he didn’t know every face. And there was a gleam that spoke of weapons worse than fists in there too. This was going to get bad, he could tell. 

“Just remember not to kill him,” Lorenzo reminded the group. “We only get paid if he’s _not_ dead.” He was apparently uninterested in continuing with his own agenda, throwing a sneer at McCree over his shoulder and shutting the door behind him with a loud bang.

\--

Three faces, two human and one simian, stared at the little blinking device on the desk. The red light blipped steadily, and Winston sat back, letting out a long breath. The Swedes took their queue from him, relaxing little by little. This test seemed far more successful than the last three.

At least this one hadn’t imploded or anything yet. Winston prodded it gently with a fingertip. “Athena? What are your readings?”

A small bleep to indicate she was thinking, then the AI’s calm voice in the workshop. “Readings from the comm units on base have been boosted by an average of six hundred and thirty percent.”

Torbjorn blew out a somewhat impressed breath. “That sounds pretty good to me.”

Brigitte was a little more unsure. “Will it help underground though?”

It was Winston who answered, bringing up a schematic. “It’s reading through the rock here well enough.” Indeed, there was Tracer’s comm, down in the depths of the Rock, water and all between the sensor and the comm. 

“So,” Brigitte folded her hands before her on the table. “We take this, put it somewhere near where he probably is, get readings, and then get him out.” 

She ignored the look shared between Torbjorn and Winston at her assurance. Not hearing a no at this assertion, Brigitte stood, nodding. “Great. Let me know when you’re ready to go, Winston. I’ll get Lena.” With that, she turned to go.

Torbjorn and Winston exchanged another look. Winston opened a hand in an ‘after you’ gesture and Torbjorn went hurrying after his daughter.

“Brigitte.” His tone was level, the sort of warning tone he’d get when she was doing something she knew better than to do.

She paused, shoulders slumping a little with a sigh, and she turned back to him. “You know I have to go, Pappa.”

“I know.” 

It wasn’t the response she had been expecting, honestly. Her father was as stubborn as she was, if not more, famously so. “You’re… ok with me going?”

A matching sigh from him. “No, but I know you’re going to anyway, and I might as well help you get ready.”

This won a fond smile from her, wan and lopsided as it was. She knew he’d be behind her, but hearing it was always reassuring. “Thank you.”

“Always, _sötnos_ . Now come on, I want a look at your armor before you go haring off again.”

“Alright, alright.” Her smile stayed as she followed him to the workshop. 

\--

“Well well,” McCree said, looking up at the woman leading the group, a cyclopean Omnic beside her, as usual. “I thought you two were rusty piles of scrap.”

Maggie Compton, her left eye opaque white from the same injury that had given her that nasty scar across the bridge of her nose, smiled back at him sourly. The Omnic, S.U/E. rolled her one large central optic. “No, no thanks to you.” 

He really should have been expecting the punch, and in fact couldn’t say he didn’t really deserve it, at least a little, even though it had been a good many years since they’d last met. He wasn’t expecting the follow-up kick to the gut that robbed him of breath and left him retching, his empty stomach trying to wring itself out. He was glad he hadn’t eaten since that morning.

When he'd finally caught his wind again, he gave a low laugh that sent a stab of pain through his chest. “Heh.” 

She crouched at this quietly vented laugh to peer at him curiously. “Something to say?”

He coughed, trying to breathe, and grinned a bloody grin up at her. “Seems like Suzie’s finally been teachin’ you to throw a proper punch.” And then he head-butted her.

McCree got the oh-so-fleeting satisfaction of seeing her fall on her ass to the dirt-covered floor, her eye glaring with rage. S.U/E. helped her up, optic narrowed at him. “Why you-”

He never saw what hit him from the right, just that there was pain, and everything dissolved into starry blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the chapter delay. Turns out walking pneumonia doesn't allow for as much writing time as one would imagine... BUT HEY HERE IT IS we're still going!


	18. The Hungry Ghosts Calling Out In the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which revelations are made, and plans are laid.
> 
> Note: There is violence and a minor character death in this chapter. Fair warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Adam! 
> 
> My Yuletide fic, with its deadline, took priority, but now we're back to our (ir)regularly scheduled rarepair programming. It's a bit shorter, but the next chapter will be a bit longer, so hey. Enjoy!

“Angela!” 

The doctor was waiting for them in the workshop when Brigitte and her father entered, looking tired but no worse for the wear. Hearing the door open she rushed to them, laying a comforting hand on Brigitte’s arm. “I came as soon as I could. What can I do to help?”

Brigitte summoned up the same wan smile she’d been managing for the last couple of hours, then folded Angela into a brief hug. “I’m so glad to see you back safe. Is Genji…?”

Angela was nodding when Brigitte let her go. “He went to find Winston.” She stood back and let the other two past her into the workshop proper, where Brigitte’s bag sat next to the pieces of her armor spread across a workbench. “Though I did have an idea…”

“Hm?” 

She tapped a fingernail on the backpiece of the armor, where the power and many of the other mechanisms that performed various functions were housed. “How hard do you think it would be to add some of my biotic technology to your armor?”

Brigitte blinked at her, frowned, then turned to her father. “Pappa?”

Torbjorn was already waving at her as he went to the large drawers where they stored schematics and blueprints for their current and recent projects. Brigitte turned back to the armor, picking up a wrench to start on getting at the innards of it. “I think there may be enough surplus power from the unit Pappa installed to do something else with. Though not too terribly much…”

“We will see what we can do with it.”

She had gotten the protective cover off, exposing the complicated circuitry and parts inside, but set down the wrench. “I don’t know if we’ve got _time_ right now though. Winston has the beacon ready and--” She stopped, not wanting to think about how much time they had left--if they had any left at all. 

Angela laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I think… I think we should let someone else place the beacon, _bӓrchen_. We’ll need to wait for the information it gives to us after all. Then we can go rescue him.”

Brigitte bit her lip, considering. She supposed it made sense, after all, and with these new modifications Angela was suggesting she wouldn’t feel like she was sitting around doing nothing while waiting for the intel. She knew charging off before you were fully informed and ready was a bad idea. It was only now, though, that she was really beginning to understand how very hard that could be, to wait for the right moment.

Finally she nodded, smiled at her father bringing the blueprints, and quirked half a smile. “Ok. Let’s get to work.”

\--

His head was pounding when he finally came to, lying on the dirty stone floor. He opened his eyes just a sliver, but the low light from the recessed lamp sent a slice of pain through his head and he shut them again. For a long moment he lay there, trying to catalogue his injuries without opening his eyes… or moving too much, really. 

Other than breathing, which sent sharp, shooting pains through his chest thanks to those abused ribs, and his pounding head, everything hurt in such a generalized way that he couldn’t pinpoint where he’d actually been injured. Gradually, the pounding in his head subsided enough for him to try and open his eyes again. It hurt, yes, but this time he was able to grit his teeth through it. 

Gingerly, he tried to sit up, head swimming, stomach lurching. He thought he was going to throw up, for a moment, but it passed after a moment of stillness. The next thing to attempt would be standing, but he didn’t think that was going to happen anytime soon.

Voices from outside the door warned him that he had company. Lorenzo entered first, followed by--McCree was relieved to see--D.A.V.E., and a third figure. It seemed it was cloaked in the shadows from the hall at first before it resolved into a dark coat, dark leathers, and a bone-white mask.

It took a moment for McCree to realize where he’d seen that mask before--he tended to keep an eye on wanted posters, after all. Lorenzo’s ‘old friend’ was the terrorist and murderer internationally known as the Reaper.

“Yeah, yeah. There we go,” Lorenzo gestured to McCree’s bent and huddled form. “Still breathing, as you can see.”

Reaper gave a growl of acknowledgement. “Good.”

D.A.V.E.’s optics were flicking uneasily between the two. McCree could sympathize. Lorenzo crossed his arms and tried an insouciant lean against the wall. Not that he quite pulled it off, but at least he tried. “So what now?”

“Now? We wait for his friends to show up.” It was hard to tell through the guttural growl of his voice, but Reaper’s tone sounded as if this should be obvious. Of course they were waiting for the rescue team. 

Lorenzo and D.A.V.E.didn’t seem so sure about this though. McCree’s mind raced ahead, since they seemed content to ignore him completely with regards to this conversation. It was obvious that it was a trap, and for Jesse’s friends at that. What he didn’t understand was why.

Apparently neither did Lorenzo. “There are people out there lookin’ for him and you want us to stay here like sitting ducks?” He had lowered his voice significantly, but his drawl still carried to McCree.

“Right.”

Lorenzo started, taken aback. “What? What are you playing at? When the _hell_ are we getting Ashe out?” His voice was low, angry, full of venom. 

The Reaper looked down at him, focus off of McCree for the moment but the face unreadable behind the mask. “We’re not.” 

This was too much for Lorenzo, and he pulled McCree’s Peacekeeper from his holster, aiming it at the ghoul’s mask. D.A.V.E. backed up towards the door, hands up in a warding gesture as he tried to back out of the situation. “That wasn’t the damn plan!”

“I lied.” So quick McCree almost missed it, Reaper pulled a shotgun seemingly out of thin air and with a deafening bang, blew Lorenzo away, his corpse thumping heavily to the ground. The clatter of McCree’s Peacekeeper followed a moment after. 

McCree stared at the black figure as Reaper tossed the shotgun down on top of the body, then approached him. A small part of McCree’s mind noted that D.A.V.E. had vanished down the tunnel, away from the murderer in the room. Jesse was glad of it, even as it meant one less ally on his side. 

Something about it all, the casual way he’d blown away the other man, the disregard of the plan… it was there, lurking at the edge of his mind, but he couldn’t quite get at it.

“Why don't you just _kill_ me, you rat bastard?” McCree spat angrily through gritted teeth. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, but he wanted his friends in a trap where he was the bait even less.

Reaper laughed, harsh and guttural, grating at every raw nerve ending McCree was gritting his teeth against. “Oh I will, but first I'm gonna make you watch every person who shows up to rescue you die, knowing that you killed them.”

The idea of this ghoul that called himself death getting his hands--or his guns--on Brigitte, or Lena or Angela for that matter, made his blood run cold. “They ain't gonna come for me. They're not gonna risk themselves for one wayward cowboy.”

“You never were the brightest, were you, Jesse?” 

“An’ why the hell do you keep calling me that?” There weren’t many people who called him that, as most people stuck to his last name. Only people he was really familiar with or really wanted to piss him off used it. And there was something weird, something almost familiar about the way that he said it. “The only people I’ve been that to are-- were--” he stopped, staring up into the black.

The guns, the mannerisms, the name--McCree reeled as if struck, the realization too ridiculous, too absurd, too close to making sense for him to handle. Reaper, seeing the expression on his face, laughed. “Now he’s getting it.”

“R-Reyes?” 

Another dark chuckle. “Finally the cowboy figures it out. Been a long time.”

McCree was still trying to wrap his mind around the terror in front of him claiming to be his old commander. “But-- but you died. When Switzerland happened, you _died_.”

“It turns out death becomes me.” 

\--

The ground below the small craft was dry, sun-baked rocks and scrub, the shadow of the ship the only shade in sight. “How does it look?” Genji called to the cockpit.

Ray was in his element, keeping the ship cruising just above the ground. “I think this is as close as we’re gonna get before we start showing up on whatever sorts of sensors they’ve got hiding down there.” 

“Right.”

With a ‘hup’ sound, he pushed himself out of the ship, landing in a three-point stance. Nearby was a small, dark hole in the ground, broken boards and tumbled rocks scattered nearby. Genji picked his way down into the dark, his eyes adjusting swiftly to the change. He knew he couldn’t go too far into the old mine. Between the past collapses and the general instability of the immediate area the old mine was very unsafe. On the other hand, it was the closest they could get to where McCree likely was without running into anybody.

Genji pulled the device he’d been given from his bag, setting it down on a flat, bare patch of rock. One tap, a second one, where Winston had showed him, and several lights started glowing a clear blue. Standing, he scanned the cavern for any other dangers to the sensor booster. There didn’t seem to be any immediate ones, save for the general dilapidated atmosphere of the place.

Before going back, he paused a moment to look in the direction best intelligence said his friend was being held. “We are coming for you, McCree.” It was a promise, to himself, to his friends, to whatever powers might be listening in at that moment. He was going to make it true.

Finished, he swiftly picked his way back up to the outside again. Ray spotted him emerging, and soon Genji was back on board, headed back.

\--

Brigitte forced a smile, adjusting one of the pieces she’d added to the armor for Angela’s new modifications to work as intended. “It’s--it’s going to be fine, Reinhardt. We’ll get him. Everything will be ok.”

Reinhardt looked serious, as somber as he had in Eichenwalde, the day he’d told her that tale, from so long ago. He was never a man lost for words, but he seemed to be holding them back for some reason. Finally, he shook his head and swept her into a hug, half armor and all. Letting he go, he clapped a hand on her shoulder. It was a credit to her training that she didn’t so much as stagger under it. “Go bring our boy home.”

Brigitte nodded back firmly, swallowing her emotions down into her. There would be time enough for those later. Once they had him back, there would be time for everything.


	19. Dancing With the Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Reaper fucks McCree up pretty good, certain revelations occur, and there are bad dreams.
> 
> Warning: more violence in this chapter.

“This is new,” Reaper commented, almost casual, as if he weren’t wrenching the mechanical arm behind McCree’s back to contort him into a painful position. This meant his other arm was twisted awkwardly as well, shackled to the other other, ribs and everything else protesting fiercely.

“Yeah,” McCree managed to grit out, aiming for the same casual tone. He almost managed it. “Picked it up along the way.”

“Hmmm.” This was all the warning he got before--as far as the pain receptors in the artificial limb were telling him--Reaper began to pry the covering panel off the wrong way, the hinges and catches protesting as they sent to his senses that something not-good was happening to his limb. He wished he could tell the arm that he got the damn idea. “Not bad.”

McCree was breathing too hard, trying to hang on to consciousness and managing to do it without even throwing up, too busy to answer. Reaper continued to mess with the arm. McCree couldn’t see what he was doing, with his arm twisted up like that, unable to get away, but it felt like he was digging a hot poker into flesh--a result of the frantic mixed signals the electronics were blasting at him with every twitch of Reaper’s claws.

After an agonizing flash of pain that brought McCree to his knees without realizing it, all sensation from the abused limb went dim, then dead. “Huh,” Reaper said. 

The moment he dropped McCree’s prosthetic, McCree scrambled back and away from him, the arm a dead weight hanging off his upper arm. It hurt, having it hanging there as dead metal weight, even though the sensors in it proper were no longer working. The cuffs only dangled from his right wrist now, for all of the good that it did him.

He couldn’t read any expression through the bone-white mask, but after a moment came Reyes’s--no, Reaper’s--harsh, grating laugh. It was hard to reconcile this creature with the man that he had known, but every once in a while something familiar caught him off guard, making it clear. That laugh was one of those things. 

McCree tried to sit up straight, since standing definitely wasn’t an option, glaring back. Unfortunately Reaper seemed amused by any show of defiance. Ignoring McCree, he turned his mask toward McCree’s gun, lying on the ground next to Lorenzo’s cooling body, tilting in consideration for a moment. He picked it up in a gloved hand, McCree seething at the sight. With expert hands--Reyes had known McCree’s weapons well, back in the day--he unloaded all six shots into his glove, then slid them away into a pocket of darkness. 

It seemed he was about to walk away again, out the door, but even as McCree began to gather himself to stand and charge, Reaper stopped, the mask turning towards him with a considering look. “No. You know, I think I’ll give you a choice.” With deliberate carefulness, he produced and then reloaded a single bullet into the gun, shut the chamber, and gave it a spin. Once loaded with the single bullet, he aimed it at McCree, still sprawled on the ground. 

There was a click. McCree flinched, then breathed again, any relief he felt dulled by pain. Reaper laughed, then tossed the gun to the ground between the two of them. “I guess you got lucky again, Jesse. This time.”

Before McCree could move or respond, Reaper was stalking out of the room, slamming the door behind him with a clang. 

There were a few moments of quiet, McCree cursing ineffectually into it. Then true silence. 

Then the other door, the one he hadn’t really been paying attention to, since it hadn’t opened or been used by anyone as far as he’d seen, creaked open rustily. The first thing he saw were the glowing optics of an omnic. Only when he realized it was D.A.V.E. did McCree relax the slightest bit. “Davey?”

At this acknowledgement the omnic pushed the door open, revealing the cloth bag they held in their hand. Silently, they approached, holding the sack out to McCree, setting it down once they were close enough.

McCree blinked at the omnic, then crawled to the sack, opening it up. A few ration bars and a canteen that sloshed when it moved were the only contents. He looked back up. “What, you couldn’t give me a crowbar or something?” 

D.A.V.E. looked uncomfortable, shifting their optics around as if they were worried someone was watching the two of them. Then, with a soft clink, their other fist opened up and a few bullets--ones that looked to McCree like they would fit into his Peacekeeper--clinked to the ground as well. 

It hurt to scoot up and gather those precious bits of metal with his good hand, the remains of his left weighing him down on that side. McCree pressed them into his pocket, intent on loading them into the gun when he got himself over there. He looked up at the omnic. “What the hell you doing, Davey?”

No answer, though they looked abashed as they moved toward the door they’d come in through. McCree shook his head slowly, the only way he could do it without it feeling like it was going to explode. “You gotta get yourself out of here.” 

Slowly, with a last look over their shoulder, D.A.V.E. shut the door, trying to be gentle and not close it all the way. It was all for nothing though, as a humming draft through the rock tunnels thumped it shut behind them. 

It wasn’t any more of a problem than what he was already dealing with though. Gritting his teeth, McCree set his sights on his gun, lying on the dusty, blood-spattered ground.

\--

He was out.

Well, not _out_ out but he’d at least managed to get himself out of the room he’d been held in for the last few--well, the last few whiles. He wasn’t sure of a sense of time anymore, if he was honest. He couldn’t see the sky, locked in here, and his only food had been a couple of ration bars and a canteen full of stale water that had appeared at some point. But he’d managed to get out.

Since his prosthetic arm was already busted and in desperate need of repairs, he’d managed to wedge one of the bits of metal from it between the rock and the door. Since the pain receptors in the hand didn’t work anyway, using it as a sort of makeshift hammer was possible. The jolting shudders made the rest of his arm, shoulder, and body hurt, but he figured he really couldn’t do any more damage to himself anyway.

Finally he’d managed to make a crack he could wedge more metal into. After that, it was fairly quick, the door swinging open quietly. The tunnel ahead was dimly lit by a single lamp that he could see, but otherwise empty before that sharp turn. He knew caution was warranted but if he paused he was afraid he’d stop moving altogether. 

Which was how, rounding the corner, he nearly ran into one Moira O’deorain. Tall, red hair, pale skin and those mismatched eyes--unmistakeable, really,

“Th’ hell are you doing here?” McCree demanded, staring incredulously. He caught her arm with his good arm, trying to pull her along down the hall the way she’d come. “Don’t matter, we gotta get out of here.”

She didn’t budge, instead shaking him off and retreating a step back. “You still haven’t killed him yet?”

McCree stared, the black shape in the darkness gradually resolving into the form of the Reaper. Realization clicked like the cocked hammer of a gun. “Aw hell, Moira. You’ve been in on it from the beginning.” It wasn’t a question, it was obvious, even to him, now.

She looked down her long, aristocratic nose at him contemptuously. “I had thought you’d figure it out long beforehand.”

This time when McCree reached out for her it was to swipe at her, try and score at least one hit on her. Lightning fast she slapped his hand away, then lashed out with her other one, the wicked-looking nails digging into his flesh. From any place they touched, agony spread up his arm and he staggered back with a cry. He’d never been on the receiving end of her particular skill-set before, but it didn’t take much for him to decide that he really didn’t like it. Before he knew it he was flat on his ass in the dust again, both arms immobilized this time, one because of broken electronics, the other with pain that continued to chase itself around like poison in his veins.

Moira paid him as much mind as she would a fly she had just swatted away, turning back to the lurking darkness instead. “Really, Gabriel, do you always have to be so dramatic?” Reaper growled in answer as much as at the use of his old name. She ignored it, striding out past him back the way she had come. “You realize he’s dying anyway?”

“That’s the point.”

McCree managed to get himself back up again, having had about enough of this. His charge at Reaper, stumbling as it was, was cut short by the clawed gloves wrapping around his throat. He choked, not even able to claw at the arm holding him.

Moira sighed. “What a _waste_.”

“This one?” Reaper gave McCree a shake. “Always was.”

With this, Reaper tossed him back through the door he’d just managed to pry open, sending him skidding into the dust. He wondered if Gabe had always been this strong or if dying really had been that good for him.

Before McCree could struggle to his feet again, Reaper slammed the door with a thudding finality. McCree ran at the shut metall anyway, skidding to a stop before hitting it, his ribs, his head, his everything protesting. “Dammit!” It was as loud as he could manage, and he still felt the stab somewhere in his ribcage.

There was no response from outside.

\--

Darkness took him at some point, the light-headed swimming of his head, the sheer relief of being armed again, the pains subsiding to a general, horrible ache. He didn’t know how long he was out, but before he knew it he was standing at the back door, about to try the same trick on it he had on the other one, when it swung open.

He stumbled back, not really registering what he was seeing for a long moment. “Copperhead?”

And indeed it was, mace in hand, clad in shining, knight-like armor, like something out of a fairy-tale. She smiled broadly, triumphantly, seeing him, even battered as he was. “Jesse! There you are!”

He heard, he swore he did, the other door opening as he stared at her, and the breath choked in his throat, in elation and terror. He had wanted to see her face, missing her desperately, had hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t come to him. She was in danger here, terrible danger.

She was saying something, something he didn’t register as he turned, as he tried to thrust her behind him, as he realized there was someone else in the room too--

McCree flinched at the report of a shot, felt nothing. Brigitte stopped, swayed, and he saw with horror the small, round hole in the forehead, just above her left eyebrow. “No, no no no--”

She fell forward, armored knees hitting the ground and he dove to catch her, her limp form in his arms telling him what he was trying so hard to deny. “No, c’mon, you gotta answer me you can’t do this c’mon Copperhead.” He was babbling, a steady stream of pleas and denials. Her eyes stared up, unfocused, already clouding over with death. Beneath his hand the back of her head was warm and sticky with blood, her blood. “Please, Bri, c’mon--”

The sharp points of claws digging into his shoulder clotted his tongue in his mouth. “I told you you’d watch her die first.” With that Reaper aimed a shotgun at his face, squeezed the trigger and--

McCree woke with a start, heart pounding, a shooting pain up his shoulder and into his chest. It was dark, silent, only his blood on the dusty ground. He must have dozed off for however brief a time, his nightmares taking advantage of his fears and the dark.

“-tting something. Jes--? Are y-- awake? McCree?”

He had to be imagining things, he thought, the crackling, staticky voice of Brigitte in his ear waking him from the lingering darkness of his dreams. “B-Bri?”

Everything hurt, and swimming through the pain to the logical conclusion took longer than it ought to have, but he finally realized it was his comms. Which meant they were in range.

Which meant they were coming to get him. 

“Bri--” He choked on her name and coughed, sending searing shocks of pain radiating through his body. He barely made out her cry over the sound of his hacking coughs. He spat up blood. He stared at it on the dusty ground for a moment as he tried to get a breath in to speak. Blood wasn’t good. He knew that much. “Bri, you gotta go, it’s-it’s a trap, you gotta leave.”

“We are not leaving you, Jesse.” He could even imagine her stern look that would go with the voice, the stubborn set of her chin, as clearly as if she was in front of him.

But she couldn’t be there. If that ghoul, if _Reaper_ got his hands on her, on the others… “You gotta, you can’t, you don’t understand, it’s--”

He choked on the smoke half a second before the growl told him he was no longer alone. “Telling secrets are we, Jesse?”

Jesse glared up at the figure poisonously, growling back. “Reaper.”

In his ear, he heard voices on the other end of the comms, Brigitte’s among them. They went tinny, and then out completely as the man who had once been Gabriel Reyes grabbed his hair with one clawed hand and dug the earpiece out with the other, tossing it on the ground. 

Before McCree could do more than try and flinch away, one of Reaper’s shotguns was out. He blasted away at the small device, chips flying from the concrete floor with the small shrapnel that had once been a very advanced piece of technology. The ringing in McCree’s head drowned out the sound of the gun hitting the floor, and by the time he looked back it had vanished. 

The same ringing almost drowned out the sound of Reaper’s harsh laughter. Almost

\--

“Jesse!” Brigitte shouted, lurching forward to brace herself on the console. There was no response, only static.

Lena flipped a switch on the dash, her eyes wide and worried. “Athena?”

The steady voice of the system answered. “The comm unit for Jesse McCree appears to have been destroyed.”

Brigitte leaned on the console as if she could make the craft go faster through sheer will and determination. She didn’t need to say it, they all knew they had to hurry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you I'd have a chapter up for you shortly, and a much longer one at that. Next one up soon.


	20. A Brush With the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a rescue is undertaken.
> 
> Note: Some violence.

“This is the nearest entrance?”

Winston double-checked the read-out from the device on his arm, moving the view to see what lay beyond. “No, but it’s the straightest path to where he is.”

There was no need to specify which ‘he’ was meant. With a determined nod, Brigitte swung her mace at the old and rusty locked gate, breaking the padlock off with one hit. As she did, the team around her--Winston, Angela, and Genji--felt a burst of rejuvenation, the modifications Angela had helped to make doing their work. Tracer was back at the ship, ready to take off as soon as they returned, or come rushing in for backup, whatever was needed. 

There was no question of who was leading this small team, Brigitte moving forward with single-minded determination. Every time they came across a branch or a turn, she would look back at Winston just long enough to get guidance from him on which way to go before pushing forward, the rest of the team behind her. 

Genji was suddenly in front of her, silently hushing them and holding up a fist in the generally-acknowledged ‘hold’ gesture. Brigitte readied her weapon, and she heard Mercy’s grip shift on her small pulse pistol. 

A few small clinks of metal, a pause, and then, into the dim light cast by the powered components on their armor and Brigitte’s powered-up shield, there shuffled an omnic. Slim, gunmetal-gray parts mixed with enameled blue, optics a synchronous aqua--Brigitte remembered him from the warehouse where they had taken Jesse.

She started forward, raising her mace, but the omnic scrambled back, hands up in defense and surrender. Brigitte stopped, not even needing Genji’s hand at her shoulder. She was angry, and afraid, even if it was hard to admit to herself, but she would never strike someone unarmed who looked like they were trying to surrender.

There was a moment of stand-off. Brigitte lowered her mace, stepping forward again. “You’re--you were with the gang, when they took McCree.” It was hard to keep the accusation out of her voice.

The omnic made an equivocating gesture, then sighed, flute-like, only the second noise she’d heard them produce. Their voice, when they spoke, was soft and lilting, very at odds with the sleek enamel-and-steel appearance of the rest of them. “You’re here to rescue him, yes?”

Brigitte threw a glance at Genji--even more unreadable behind his mask--then back to the omnic. “Yes. Do you know where he is?”

“I can take you to him.”

She was about to ask what the catch was, what they would have to bargain for his freedom, when the Omnic turned around and began to backtrack the way they had come. The team looked at each other, obviously confused. Then Brigitte hurried off after the omnic, the rest of the team following her.

Quickly, she caught up with the omnic, following just a pace behind. “It-it was Davey, right?”

“Close enough.” The omnic was hurrying ahead through the tunnels cautiously, clearly knowing the way but still checking before turning each corner. Brigitte could only hear some of the others behind her, but assumed they were all coming. Just because she couldn’t hear Genji didn’t mean he wasn’t there, after all. 

“You helped capture him, so why help us now?” Maybe these weren’t questions to ask when you were being helped by someone, but they felt important to know.

Davey stopped, venting another high, fluted sigh before turning back to Brigitte and the others. “Because they killed Lo’, and I don’t want to be next. I want to get out.” 

They certainly sounded sincere in this desire, though it took Brigitte a moment to put together the nickname and the man in the warehouse. “Lorenzo?” The Omnic nodded. “But why--who would do that?”

“Lo’ was working for someone, made a deal with him. He thought it was to get Ashe out but…” Davey trailed off, shaking their head. 

This information put all of them on their guard, even more so than they were already. But it was Brigitte, again, who stepped forward once more. “Ok. Show us where he is.”

One or two more corners and there was a metal door set into the rock, a simple latch on the outside of it. This was clearly not the main entrance to this room, a thick layer of dust on the ground with a single trail leading to and from the door. “Through there,” Davey said, stepping back to let the team at it.

She and Genji stepped forward, listening at the door. There didn’t appear to be any sort of commotion or conversation going on behind it, but it wasn’t clear what that meant. Winston had the display up, clearly indicating that this had been the last-known location of McCree’s comm unit, before being destroyed.

Genji lifted the latch carefully, making sure it didn’t clink against the wall when he let it go, then looked to Brigitte. She held up her hand, giving him a three count and he nodded. A few beats later, Genji flung the door open and she leapt through, shield out and humming blue. 

“Jesse!” He was alone in the room, so it seemed. Distantly, she noted the dead body at the side but, since it wasn't an immediate threat, she ignored it. After this split-second assessment Brigitte ran to him, curled up in the dust on the floor. Dropping her mace and shield at her side she went to her knees next to him, . He was breathing, she saw that with a rush of relief, and he had opened his eyes at the sound of her voice. Mercy was there a heartbeat later.

McCree eyed the two of them, seemingly processing their presence, then gave a little bit of a grin, made macabre by the trace of blood at the corner of his mouth. “I _must_ be dead--got an angel and a valkyrie.” 

Brigitte made a small noise of protest, wiping at the blood there with her thumb. Angela rolled her eyes only slightly, absorbed in the business of assessing how badly McCree was injured. Brigitte helped him sit up when he moved to do so, supporting him against herself.

Genji was at the other door, the one they hadn’t come through, listening. Winston was their rear guard, while the women dealt with McCree. Mercy had her Caduceus staff out, healing light surrounding him. He seemed to improve by the second, though slowly. Sh still looked worried as she checked him over as best she could, given the circumstances. 

“Can you stand?” Brigitte asked after a moment, all too aware that they were on limited time here. 

“For you? I could fly.” It was an exaggeration, of course, and not one that reassured. 

“The sooner we can get you to proper medical care, the bett--” Mercy was interrupted by a shudder of the earth, and an echoing boom through the tunnels. Moments later a cloud of rock dust blew in through the open door they had entered through. 

Winston was immediately on the move, going to check it out. He returned a moment later, covered in rock dust, shaking his head. Tracer came over their comms. “Guys? It looks like the tunnel just collapsed, are you alright?” She sounded worried, but not frantic. 

“It looks like we’re going to have to go out the front door,” Winston told them all. 

“Copy that, I’ll meet you there,” Tracer confirmed.

McCree looked up at Brigitte, steeling himself before giving her a reassuring nod. She understood, but still bit her lip and looked to Mercy, silently asking whether it was a good idea to let him get up, with his injuries. Mercy looked torn, but finally sighed. “The sooner we get out of here the better.”

With that, Brigitte slid McCree’s arm over her shoulder, helping him to stand, slowly. Upright, he swayed on his feet, leaning heavily against her. She was able to pick up her shield on her other arm and activate it. Winston picked up her mace and stowed it on her back, on the bracket designed for just that. 

They were not quite caught unawares as the door flew open, crashing into the wall. Brigitte’s shield was immediately up, protecting herself, McCree, and Mercy behind her. 

Three gang members, identifiable by the logoed bandanas they had pulled up over their faces, poured into the room. One, an Omnic, shouted, pointing at the cooling corpse Brigitte had largely ignored, “See! They killed Lorenzo! Get ‘em!”

The three opened fire on Brigitte and the others. Immediately, the Overwatch group leapt into action--literally in Winston’s case. Between Genji and Winston, the three were soon taken care of, either thrown into walls or taken down with their own bullets, thanks to Genji. Only a few pellets pinged their way into Brigitte’s shield. 

“Time to go,” Mercy said briskly, giving Brigitte a gentle nudge. She complied, helping McCree forward, her shield up and ready.

Genji and Winston were in the corridor beyond, watching. It was clear the group was going to have to go at a slower pace, thanks to McCree’s injuries. There was only so much that Mercy could do with her staff, in these circumstances, after all.

They had a few moments of quiet, Winston checking his map, while Genji scouted ahead. Brigitte wasn’t able to get a really good look at McCree and how he was holding up, but what she saw was not encouraging. His prosthetic looked mangled and lay across her shoulder as a dead weight. A weight she could handle, of course, but it didn’t bode well for the function of the limb. His other arm was wrapped around his chest, his breathing labored. To top it all off, Angela looked worried, which was never a good sign.

There was a strange sound from behind them, like fabric flapping in the wind, and suddenly the boom of a shotgun, shots pinging off of Winston’s armor. 

“Reaper!” Within a moment, Winston was in motion, swiping out toward the dark figure that had, somehow, managed to appear behind them. Reaper got a few more shots off, then was slammed back into the tunnel wall by the gorilla. Before Winston could get another hit in, the figure had dissipated into black mist, lost to the shadows. 

Mercy was immediately at Winston’s side, checking to make sure he didn’t have any major injuries from the brief encounter. 

Brigitte was shake at the way Reaper had ghosted in, the rest of them caught totally unawares. “What the hell is he?”

A pained smile ghosted over Jesse’s face, she saw. “That would be my old boss.”

“What the fuck?”

“Pretty much what I said, yeah.”

At Winston’s gesture, the group began moving down the tunnels again, wary of shadows and more corporeal gang members. Brigitte was still bemused. “You’re telling me Commander Reyes now dresses up in a Halloween costume and floats around trying to kill people like a cheap horror movie?”

“Yeah.” He winced, holding his right arm closer to him. Mercy gave a small gasp as she got a good look at it, finally. The initial blackness that had spread up his arm at Moira’s touch was faded, but still chased the veins close to the spot she’d touched. McCree saw her looking, shook his head slightly. “Had help, too.”

Mercy bit her lip, but instead of asking more questions about it, hurried up to Genji, who was leading the group for the moment. 

Footfalls warned them about their next encounter, up ahead, and when a woman with one eye and a gun aimed at them appeared, they were ready. McCree looked up wearily, long enough to recognize her, apparently. “Here to kill me, Maggie?”

Maggie gave a look at the rest of the group surrounding him, then scoffed, lowering her weapon. “I hate you, McCree don't get that wrong. But I hate that Reaper guy more. He double-crossed us.” Brigitte was unsure what the woman was going to do for a moment, then she shook her head. “So I’m gonna double-cross him. Go left, y’gotta straight shot out the front.” She stepped aside, clearing the tunnel for them.

McCree gave a half-laugh, pained as it was. As he and Brigitte passed her, he paused for a moment, making Brigitte do the same. “Good luck, Mags.”

“Tch,” She scoffed, lifting her own pistol with the same confidence and bravado Brigitte had seen on McCree at certain times. “Who needs luck?”

He paused a moment more. “And look out for Davey, y'hear?”

She gave him a cocky grin. “You tellin’ me what to do?”

“Me? Never.” A grin, and finally he leaned on Brigitte's shoulder in the direction of the exit. 

Though Winston kept an eye on Maggie until they’d all rounded the corner, she didn’t seem interested in coming after them at all.

True to her word, the group made a final turn, and could see daylight streaming out through a tunnel opening wide enough for, say, a lift van to go through--though not something as large as the Aurora.

Brigitte broke into a grin, which faltered as she realized McCree wasn’t looking. He had his eyes closed, teeth gritted against some painful injury. He was still conscious, was still moving his legs, but was resting more and more weight on her. “We’re almost there, hang on, Jesse.”

The sunlight felt stifling after so long in the dark, the blue sky like a hard dome above them, no ship in sight. “Where is she?” Mercy muttered, sounding worried. 

From behind them there was that sound again, the shadows coalescing at the edge of the shade of the entrance, and there was Reaper again. 

Burdened by McCree, Brigitte didn’t quite get her shield up in time, shielding him with her own body instead. She took the hit on her armor instead, biting off a cry as some of the pellets found weak spots. 

Winston leapt toward them, throwing down one of his shield units, the bubble flickering to life around Brigitte, McCree, and Mercy. Genji rushed past them toward the figure cloaked in black, whipping out his smaller sword to strike. Reaper barely managed to dodge, the sword still cutting a line through the cloak. 

Immediately in motion, Reaper was firing off both shotguns in rapid succession, shot after shot pinging off Winston’s shield, Genji’s armor, Winston’s armor. When clips in both were empty, he didn’t bother to reload, simply throwing the guns down to the ground, then pulling new--apparently loaded--shotguns from the depths of his coat. 

Mercy looked up to the sky, speaking over her comms. “Tracer? We could really use your help!”

As if in answer the Aurora swooped in over the top of the ridge where the tunnel entrance was, right as Winston’s shield unit flickered out again. Reaper turned his guns on the ship, for all of the good it would do.

Tracer ignored him, swinging the craft down into the narrow space afforded to her. “Calvary’s here!” She announced over the comms as the door in the Aurora opened. 

With a shout of rage, Reaper rushed at the group, firing wildly, even as Brigitte hurried toward the ship, Jesse in tow, Mercy ahead of her. Genji and Winston were still getting in Reaper’s way, harassing him to make sure he couldn’t get to the more vulnerable party members. 

Brigitte reached the open door, still shielding McCree with her body. “Time to go!” Mercy said for the benefit of the two still out there.

Genji took one last swing at Reaper before rushing toward the ship, throwing shuriken behind him as he went. It only took Winston one mighty leap to reach the rest of them. Reaper threw down these guns, again producing new ones, and continued firing, not getting through Brigitte’s shield or the skin of the ship.

Tracer, once Winston’s bulk was aboard, swooped the ship off into the sky, the door closing as they went. The sound of Reaper’s shotguns faded, then disappeared altogether as the hatch finally closed and they flew away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a couple of chapters left! Y'all are wonderful with your comments and your kudos, I deeply, genuinely appreciate all of them.
> 
> And, as a toast to the chapter and each other: Here's to 2019 being kinder to us all.


	21. I Can Bet My Heart On It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which rescues are resolved and an important conversation is had.

“Brigitte, I need you to keep him awake,” Mercy ordered, trading the emergency palliative of the staff for working to get McCree stabilized. 

They had McCree laid out on a floating stretcher in the small ship, something that had been brought for just this sort of scenario. Brigitte had hold of his right hand, noting the clammy feel of it, the weak way he grabbed at it. “Hey, Jesse,” she tried a smile at him.

“Hey there.” He grinned back weakly, shifting into a grimace as Mercy touched him. “Don’t suppose you could find a man a drink, huh?”

“Drinks are on me when we get back, I promise,” Brigitte reassured him. When, not if, she commanded herself firmly. 

He was breathing fast, shallow breaths, but still managed to keep talking through it. It was, she supposed, what Mercy had asked for. “Ship drier than a rattlesnake’s boots, huh?”

Despite herself, she laughed, weakly. “Such a cowboy.” 

“S’me.” Talking was obviously getting harder for him. He winced again as Mercy kept working, pulling items from her kit. Brigitte focused on him instead of what Angela was doing. It helped, a little.

A few more breaths and Angela was fixing a device of some sort to his temple. “This will make it safe for you to rest,” she informed him and, by extension, Brigitte. 

“Sounds good, doc.” He muttered. “Pretty tired.” His eyes sought Brigitte’s again, his hand gripping hers a little more firmly in reassurance.

She summoned up a smile as an answer to the unspoken question. “I’ll be here when you wake up.” She pressed first her lips, then her forehead to his, lingering there as he gave some unintelligible answer, sinking out of consciousness.

Finally, she pulled back, watching Mercy still hard at work. “Angela?”

She spared a quick smile at the younger woman, stressed but not frightened. “He’s gotten himself hurt pretty badly, but I should be able to patch him up. Well,” She eyed his prosthetic. “Most of him. Would you mind removing that for me?”

Brigitte hurried to comply. It was a little more difficult than it should have been, some of the mechanisms smashed or broken, but eventually she was able to coax it off without doing any more damage to it, or him. Not knowing what else to do with it, she laid it to the side with her shield and mace, the crumpled metal looking forlorn compared to them. 

While he was out, she stood to strip off the bare minimum of her armor that she needed to be comfortable for the flight back. That done, she settled back in at McCree’s side, trusting Angela would get them all safely home. 

\--

“You need rest too, do not forget that.”

Brigitte eyed her godfather. “You of all people telling me that…”

Reinhardt had to laugh at that, since it was a little hypocritical of him to be saying such a thing to her. “That is how you know I am right.”

She shifted in the chair next to the hospital bed where McCree lay, still unconscious. The steady beeping of the monitors a comforting background, reassuring her of his continued survival. “I’ll be fine here. More comfortable than the van.” A pause. “Quieter too. He doesn’t snore as much.”

Another laugh from Reinhardt, still so much softer than she was used to with him. “If you’re certain.”

“I am. Go keep catching up with Ana. It sounds like she’s got something interesting going on.” She had only caught bits and pieces, being mostly concerned with retrieving McCree. 

He gave in, patting her firmly on the shoulder and leaving her to her watch.

\--

Genji had followed Angela in the next time she came to check on him, bringing Brigitte soup in a thermos, and water. Once Angela had performed her duties and left, he slipped her one more item--a slim flask, simple and a little beat up, but about half full. 

She blinked up at him, and he shrugged. “You seem like you could use a drink.”

Her laugh was still a little tentative, like she wasn’t sure she should show amusement when Jesse was still unconscious. “Is this Jesse’s?”

“Of course.” He smiled at her, a small shared joke.

After a moment’s consideration, she uncapped the flask and had a swig, savoring the way it burned a little on the way down, the shiver of warmth through her body as, for the first time in hours, she relaxed, just a fraction. Another moment, another sip. She held it up, silently asking Genji if he wanted any. He took a pull from it, wincing at the taste, and handed it back. She capped the flask again and stowed it with the knitting project she’d asked her father to bring to her, for something to do while she waited.

They sat in companionable silence for a long while before Genji finally left. She fell asleep to the steady drone of the monitors. 

\--

When he woke, it was slowly, the subtle increase in the heart rate monitor beeps rousing Brigitte from her nap. Still, it was a few more minutes before she was sure, as he scrunched up his face against the light of the infirmary room. 

Immediately she was at his side, hand on his, eyes searching his face. He blinked a few times before focusing on her. She smiled at him. “Hey, Jesse.”

It took him a moment to dredge up an answer. She knew the feeling. “You’re still here.” He sounded a little bewildered,looking at her like she was some kind of mystery or revelation.

She twined her fingers through his. “Of course,” she answered. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

It seemed to her like he went through a dozen answers in his head, trying them out on his tongue, though she couldn’t guess the nature of them. Then he smiled, slowly, comfortable in a way she rarely saw. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Feeling like his hand wasn’t enough contact to satisfy her, she let go of his hand in order to hoist herself up to sit on the bed next to him, careful of the various medical apparati around him. 

There, her hip against his, the feel of him breathing and back with her--the flood of relief swamped her, that he was here, that he was okay, that he was coming back to himself, finally. She hated feeling like she was going to cry, especially in front of anyone, but she was choked up anyway, too many emotions--relief chief among them--overwhelming her.

“Hey now,” he murmured, reaching up to swipe away the tear that had escaped to make its way down her cheek. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

She gave a watery laugh. There was more to that conversation, though it was probably better to save it for later. The opening of the door and arrival of Angela put it all aside for the moment.

Angela was smiling, though with a wry edge to it. “Ah, I see you’re awake.”

Jesse mimed a tip of his hat, which he wasn’t wearing, to her as she bustled in and began to check vitals, monitors, and all of that. “Thanks to you, doc.”

She folded her arms and stood back. “It certainly was.” She began counting on her fingers as she spoke. “Concussion, internal bleeding, broken ribs, systemic shock, not to mention whatever it was O’Deorain did--you nearly got yourself killed, Jesse.”

“To be fair,” he looked uncomfortable, “It wasn’t exactly my fault.”

This was one hundred percent true, but didn’t serve to make his doctor any less grumpy. “Still.” She resumed her process of checking his vitals, waving Brigitte back to her seat when she made to go, working around her with ease. Finally she stood back, folding her arms again. “I would really rather you stayed for one more night, just to be certain there aren’t going to be any lingering complications.” 

Brigitte got the sense that getting McCree to stay in a hospital bed longer than he absolutely needed to--and sometimes not even that long--had historically been something of a struggle. “Could I stay with him?” She asked before he could muster up a refusal.

“I think that would be a marvelous idea.” Her look at McCree was pointed. 

He looked back and forth between the two women, then finally gave a chuckle. “Guess I’m staying then.”

\--

Angela, mercifully, let him go to rest in his room after that first night, giving strict instructions for bed rest-- _actual_ bed rest, she had emphasized when Brigitte blushed and Jesse smirked.

McCree grumbled that Angela had taken away all of the ‘fun stuff’ that he liked to do when he was stuck at base. No shooting, no drinking, no sex--the last of which Jesse thought was terribly unfair. Not that Brigitte liked it much either, in all fairness.

“What’cha doing there?” He’d been in the shower, one towel around his neck, one around his waist, when he returned to his room. 

She was sitting cross-legged on the bed in a comfy sweater and leggings, a sketch pad on her lap and a pencil in her hand. “Thinking up some improvements. For your arm.” She turned the pad and he could see in the sketched tangle of lines and notes (some in English, more in Swedish) a design for a new mechanical arm.

“Looks a lot like the last one,” he noted, looking closer. 

”Looks, yes, function, no.” She spun it back around, pointing out some note that was incomprehensible to him. “Once I’m done with it, it should be more durable, more protection for the vital parts,” she tapped the pencil on one particular bit. “And maybe even a little lighter.”

He laughed, rubbing at his damp hair with his right hand. “Pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.”

Another pause as she considered another part of the sketches. “Do you… want the same design on the cover plate? The skull?”

He shrugged, sitting down next to her on the bed as she scooted to make room for him. “I guess so. Used to have a tattoo there, y’know, so I kind of like having it. Why?”

She hummed thoughtfully, then drew a little sketch in quick lines, a cover plate that was far more decorative, sleek lines and spikes, then she laughed. “Well, maybe not.”

He grinned at her. “Maybe for Halloween or something."

“A demon hunter? Just like in those stories Reinhardt tells because he thinks they’re scary?” 

“Yeah, why not?” He was clearly teasing her. Slowly, he drew the notebook toward him and, by extension her, kissing her languidly. She let him, then set aside the sketchbook entirely so that it was no longer between the two of them.

When he pulled back, she realized there was nothing between them but her thin leggings and a damp towel--and the latter wasn’t going to do a lot of good for long. She pulled back, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright as she looked at him. “Angela said not to…”

“Not to what?” He feigned innocence, kissing his way down her neck, to her collarbone, hand wandering to the edge of her shirt.

Brigitte wasn’t fooled, though it was clear she was enjoying his attentions. “Jesse…” It came out almost as a whine. It had been as long for her as it had for him.

He laughed low and went to pull her even closer, onto his lap, then stopped abruptly, pain shooting through his ribs.

Brigitte, of course, noticed this, though he tried to cover it up. He smiled. “It’s nothing, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

She rolled her eyes. “And _this_ is why Angela said…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he eased himself back to lie on the bed, ribs protesting this treatment until he was all the way down. Brigitte put her sketchpad on the bedside table--ironically where his prosthetic would usually go--and stretched out next to him.

He saw when the wicked gleam came into her eyes and she traced a finger down his chest, oh-so-lightly. “Of course, I’m sure when can find a compromise…”

It didn’t take them long to find something that worked for both of them. And Angela never had to know.

\--

Shockingly, for once, he was up before her. Though she supposed it did make a little sense. The night before she’d told him she was ready to fit him with his new arm. He was especially eager to get out of the old, iffy, back-up prosthetic he had been using since Angela had let him out of the infirmary.

Brigitte gave him a mock glare over the edge of her coffee cup after the third time he’d asked her if she was ready to go. “Jesse, you don’t want a tired engineer. Trust me.”

He smirked back at her. “I dunno, you’re pretty cute when you’re tired.”

“Cute?” She wasn’t offended, just bemused, and amused, at this description. “I’m so grumpy when I’m tired!”

He shrugged, in a ‘can’t help it’ kind of way. She rolled her eyes and took another long drink of her coffee. One last questioning look from him, and she laughed, setting down the nearly-empty coffee cup. “Alright, alright!”

He was out of the room first, and it was only because of her long legs that she was able to catch up to him, making the short walk to the workshop even quicker. 

It was empty at this hour, all covered projects and idle machines. Brigitte went straight to her workbench, gesturing him to the stool at the end of the table, which he scooted closer to her before sitting. 

If pressed, he really couldn’t tell you what was different about this iteration of his arm as opposed to his previous, when it came to the internal components. A few last adjustments and she nodded at him. “Let’s give it a try--I’ll probably have to make some adjustments, before it’s all set to go.”

“Alright.” He shrugged the serape off his shoulder. The left sleeve of his shirt was already rolled up and pinned into place above where the stump of his arm was. Fortunately all the damage Reaper had done here fell into Mercy’s purview and was, therefore, already fixed. All Brigitte had to deal with was the mechanical half. 

Carefully, she fit the prosthetic to his arm, the connections sliding into place with a few starts and moments of hesitation. Just before she slid it into the final connection, she glanced up at him, clearly trying not to laugh. “I just hope you don’t accidentally hit me in the face again.”

He laughed and was about to protest that that had been an accident, when she made the final connection. It was a little movement, but it hit him like a massive static shock, jolting him. The pins and needles feeling spread up his arm as the electronics in it lit up. 

“We’ll need to fix that, I guess,” she murmured to herself at this reaction. Clearly it wasn’t supposed to do that. 

She nodded to him, and he began a few preliminary exercises with the hand, flexing and folding the fingers and wrist. As she watched, Brigitte made notes to herself with a grease pencil directly onto the metal surface of the workbench. A few moments of this and she nodded. “Okay.” When she reached to take it off of him again, he surrendered it to her, similar jolts when she disconnected it. She made an apologetic noise, and set the arm in front of her, checking her notes and getting to work.

He watched her, reminded by her words of that first time she had helped with his arm, out in the field. It felt like so incredibly long ago, since so much had happened. She paused in her work when he let out a soft laugh. “What?”

“Just being around you…” He paused. This felt like something better said over drinks, or in their bed in the low light, not the fluorescents of the workshop. But he’d begun on it and she wasn’t going to let that go, judging by the increasingly curious look she was giving him. “It’s, uh. It’s nice.”

“Nice?” He’d even call that look quizzical now. 

Maybe it was the shock to his system, maybe it was the jolt of the coffee he’d bolted finally hitting. Maybe it was the almost-dying and being out of commission for a week. Whatever it was, he kept talking. 

I mean, it’s just. When I’m around you, it makes me wanna believe in all that stuff about honor and glory and justice, even though I ain’t found an ounce of any of those in this whole damned world yet.” Brigitte flushed with pleasure at the compliment. He wasn’t done yet though, the compliment a preface for the rest of the thought. “But I can’t help thinking... I’m a dangerous person to know. I almost died and I was just the bait for y’all. What happens next time someone with a grudge or an eye for money decides to come after me?”

“We’ll deal with it,” she answered immediately. 

“I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. And Gabe’s still out there, and I _know_ how dangerous he can get. I got off lightly this time.”

Brigitte frowned, considering this point. She didn’t doubt that Reaper--formerly Reyes--was dangerous, deadly even. “It sounded like he hates _anything_ to do with Overwatch, which I’m connected with myself now.” 

This was, yes, absolutely true, but it didn’t make him feel better to concede that point. Clearly he was uncomfortable with the thought of her being in danger, whatever the reason. But he wasn’t about to naysay her choices. He chose another direction for his arguments. “Yeah, but he’s got a special grudge against me. Besides, you’re young, you don’t need to be tied to an old man like me.”

She rolled her eyes, a little exasperated at this line of thinking, apparently, going back to her work. “First of all, you’re not old, so stop thinking like that. _Reinhardt_ is old.” Comparatively, it was true, but it wasn’t much he could argue against. “And second, almost everyone I know is dangerous to know, from my father on down. You don’t think there aren’t still people who hear the name ‘Lindholm’ and want to lay the whole Omnic uprising at Papa’s feet?” That sort of thing did happen, from time to time.

With this, Brigitte finished up a few last calibrations, then closed the panel on the arm and held it up in a gesture to indicate she was ready to help him put it back on again. Obligingly, he held his left arm out for her to do so. “Look, Jesse,” She began, knowing that he couldn’t walk away from her while she had him like this, fixing his arm. “I like you. I think I might love you. And if you don’t feel the same that’s fine, but I’m not going to be scared off by old shadows or monsters or your own fears.” She finished attaching the arm, activating it with a few button presses--only a pleasant jolt this time--and looked up at him. “That’s my choice that I’ve made.”

His arm was fixed now, he could walk away, tell her no, tell her that asking her to put herself in additional danger for his sake wasn’t acceptable. He stayed put, turning his hand over to take one of hers, looking at the way her handiwork fit him so well, fit her in turn. “Dammit all.” He sounded resigned, almost. Then he brought her hand up to press a kiss to it, so reminiscent of the way he’d done that day they’d met each other again.

“What does that mean?” As long as he was kissing her hand like that she was pretty sure it didn’t mean anything too bad. 

“It means you’re right.” He twined her fingers with his, the metal cool against her skin, and looked up. “You’re a habit I picked up along the way, and it scares the hell outta me, but I’m beginning to think I might love you too.”

“Yeah?”

He shrugged, having laid that declaration,such as it was, out there. She smiled, slipping her hand out of his, then around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her almost into his lap as he sat on the work stool. “I think we can make that work,” She said, then leaned in to kiss him thoroughly, for a good, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically this is the final chapter, but we'll have an epilogue to tie up loose ends, I promise!


	22. [Epilogue] Wherever You're Going, I'm Going That Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which loose ends are wrapped up.

“You don’t gotta go to this thing, y’know that, right?”

Brigitte flipped her hair out so the gentle curls fell over her bare shoulders before turning to look at him. “Of course I don’t.”

Jesse tucked a copper tress behind her ear, rough fingers lingering on her cheek. “Why doncha stay here with me instead. Let me appreciate _this_ dress properly.” His hand wandered down to the silky gold strap that held the dress up. 

When his hand started further down toward her oh-so-tempting cleavage, she intercepted it with her own, holding it close. “Because _I_ want to. And this way if I’m tempted to hit her I won’t have my mace to do it with,” she pointed out in a matter-of-fact sort of way.

That, at least, he couldn’t argue with, but he still pouted at her. It only made her laugh and kiss him, before pulling away. The car was leaving soon, after all.

“I’ll be back soon,” she promised him. He still looked forlorn, but handed her into the car anyway. He didn’t linger very long outside, since it was risky enough for him to be out here in a major city, side street or not, and by the time the car turned the corner, he had disappeared inside.

Soon the car was pulling up to the chateau that had been rented out for the party. She could have sworn that, despite its inability to do so, the omnic at the door gave her something of an odd look when she presented her credentials. They were all in order, though, and soon she was in to the party. 

It took a good while for her to find the person she’d come intending to see, and for a little while, as she nursed her champagne, Brigitte wondered if maybe Moira had skipped the party entirely. A flash of red hair over the top of the crowd reassured her though, and as she made her way in that direction she caught a lilting hint of someone speaking in an Irish accent. 

The chateau had several pairs of french doors that opened up onto balconies where one could get some of the cool Paris night air and a little respite from the noise of the party. Brigitte followed the doctor to one of these.

The older woman turned as soon as Brigitte stepped onto the balcony, looking her up and down. She didn’t looked surprised to see her, or startled in the least, leading Brigitte to conclude Moira had known she was there the whole time. Perhaps as soon as she had stepped into the building. “Let me guess,” Moira drawled, sounding unconcerned, an edge of mockery there. “You’ve got a little grudge because I happened to be there when your precious little boy toy was hurt.”

Brigitte paused, re-assessing her approach to the conversation. “Well. You’re not _wrong_.” She continued up to the rail of the balcony, looking out over the view it afforded of the city of lights.

Clearly, this wasn’t quite the answer Moira had been expecting, as it surprised a laugh out of her, without much of her usual scorn. 

Brigitte sipped her champagne until the glass was dry, then turned to her. “You’re lucky,” She said softly. 

Even though they were nearly the same height, Moira still managed to look down her nose at the younger woman. “Why is that then?” Her voice was full of haughty coldness again. 

“Because if you or ‘Reaper’ ever come near Jesse McCree again I will see to it personally that you will never harm anyone ever again.” Her voice was soft, but full of confidence. 

Moira scoffed. “Please. A little girl like you, trained by an old man, palling around with jumped up apes and tin automatons?”

Brigitte smiled brightly, broadly, undeterred. “That’s right.” 

Moira’s skepticism was unabated, but Brigitte didn’t care. She had delivered her warning. If Moira chose not to heed it, that would be her funeral. Brigitte raised her glass of champagne in a miniature salute, before turning with a flourish and walking away, leaving Moira on the balcony under the stars and lights of the city. 

Later, McCree even got to appreciate the dress.

\--

“You did _what_?” Ashe asked harshly. Behind her, B.O.B.’s head was sitting on a workshop table as sparks flew from the hired mechanic’s welding torch. 

The others shifted nervously, eyes eventually falling to Maggie, at the head of their little group, now that Lorenzo was dead. “It wasn’t _our_ idea, it was all Lorenzo.”

Ashe rubbed her temple with one hand, internally wondering to herself just why she continued to deal with these idiots. “And then he went and got himself killed, of course,” she sighed. There was a general murmur of agreement, but no overt responses. “It never occurred to any of you that I could just _make bail_?” 

Another general murmur, this time uncertain, before S.U./E. piped up. “We were concerned that you would be deemed a flight risk and thus not eligible for bail.”

It was a logical response, but Ashe just laughed. “With the judges I know? Unlikely.”

Clearly no one in the group had considered that, never having been legitimately rich themselves, but Ashe was willing to let it go for now. Lorenzo had been with the Rebels for a long time, but he wasn’t exactly irreplaceable. On the other hand… “And what about Davey? You lose him too?”

Another uncomfortable collective shifting of the group as they looked at each other uneasily. Again, Maggie was the one who answered. “He’s… gone. No one’s seen ‘im since, well, since then.”

Ashe growled in frustration at just how thoroughly they had fucked this up, turning away to the workbench where B.O.B.’s head was. He gave her a look that only her long years spent with him allowed her to interpret. She blew out a sigh, a hand to her forehead. “Let me get this straight: You got Lorenzo killed, Davey’s disappeared, our hideout in the mine is compromised, and you weren’t even able to hold on to McCree?” Her tone was level, even, and far more dangerous than it would have sounded to anyone who didn’t know her.

Even her mechanic stopped what he was doing, looking uneasily between B.O.B.’s head, Ashe, and the group she was preparing to chew out--at least, he hoped so. He wasn’t here for a bloodbath. 

No one answered, making the answer clear enough to her. With another growl, she slammed her fist on the table. “Dammit!”

None of them would forget her tirade that followed any time soon.

\--

“We’ll be back in a week,” Brigitte promised, hugging her father.

Torbjorn was still a little grumbly though. “Reinhardt’s all distracted with Ana back in Egypt, what’s an old man to do rattling around this old rock?”

She laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll find some sort of trouble to get into.”

He harumphed, and she let him go, picking up the helmet sitting on the back seat of the bike. The side compartments were packed and ready to go, and Jesse was just making sure everything was squared away. The helmet he had gotten her matched her usual armor almost exactly, the metallic gray broken by a bright yellow stripe. 

Jesse gave Torbjorn an only-slightly-awkward salute, touching fingers to the brim of his hat, before swinging his leg over the bike. Brigitte settled in behind him, though paused to poke him in the side. “I still think you should wear one of these.”

He laughed as the engine came to life with its simulated roar. “Ain’t crashed a bike this nice yet, and I don’t intend to start now.”

Brigitte rolled her eyes, but was forced to grab on to him as he let the bike roll forward just an inch or so. When he laughed, she poked him again harder. This time, he grabbed her hand, kissed it, then placed it on his waist before kicking the bike into gear. With her laugh trailing behind them, they rode off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it for this one, folks! Thank you to every one of you who've left comments or kudos, they all delight me. Thank you to my beta readers, friends I bounced ideas off of, and all y'all. It's been a hell of a ride.


End file.
